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Flea bites in humans. Fleas feed on a wide variety of warm-blooded vertebrates including dogs, cats, rabbits, squirrels, ferrets, rats, mice, birds, and sometimes humans. Fleas normally specialise in one host species or group of species, but can often feed but not reproduce on other species.
The human flea (Pulex irritans) – once also called the house flea [1] – is a cosmopolitan flea species that has, in spite of the common name, a wide host spectrum. It is one of six species in the genus Pulex ; the other five are all confined to the Nearctic and Neotropical realms . [ 2 ]
Fleas do not typically live on humans; they prefer animal hosts. However, according to Bentley, they will resort to biting people when animals are unavailable and can then readily return to pets ...
Problems caused by fleas may range from mild to severe itching and discomfort to skin problems and infections. Anemia may also result from flea bites in extreme circumstances. Furthermore, fleas can transmit tapeworms and diseases to pets. When fleas bite humans, they may develop an itching rash with small bumps that may bleed.
The most infamous flea-to-human transmitted disease is the bubonic plague, which was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. ... (0.04 to 0.15 inches), wingless, blood-sucking fleas that live on ...
Cat fleas originated in Africa [4] but can now be found globally. [5] As humans began domesticating cats, the prevalence of the cat flea increased and it spread throughout the world. Of the cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis felis is the most common, although other subspecies do exist, including C. felis strongylus, C. orientis, and C. damarensis ...
Males are still mobile after a blood meal like other fleas, but the female flea burrows head-first into the host's skin, leaving the caudal tip of its abdomen visible through an orifice in a skin lesion. This orifice allows the flea to breathe, defecate, mate and expel eggs while feeding from blood vessels.
As with other fleas, the life cycle consists of eggs, the larval stages, a pupal stage and an adult stage. [7] The larvae have chewing jaws and it is only the adult fleas that are capable of biting the host. Under optimal conditions of temperature and humidity, adults can emerge from the cocoon in 23 days.