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Fleas are wingless insects, 1.5 to 3.3 millimetres (1 ⁄ 16 to 1 ⁄ 8 inch) long, that are agile, usually dark colored (for example, the reddish-brown of the cat flea), with a proboscis, or stylet, adapted to feeding by piercing the skin and sucking their host's blood through their epipharynx.
Fleas typically live longer, Cohen said, as people focus on what they find on their pets but not the home. "Treating the environment is the most difficult part to treat as you have to wait for the ...
By stage 2 (days 1–2), penetration is complete and the flea has burrowed most of its body into the skin. Only the anus, the copulatory organs, and four rear air holes in fleas called stigmata remain on the outside of the epidermis. The anus will excrete feces that is thought to attract male fleas for mating, described in a later section.
The most infamous flea-to-human transmitted disease is the bubonic plague, which was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
The adults are roughly 1.5 to 4 mm in length and are laterally flattened. They are dark brown in color, are wingless, and have piercing-sucking mouthparts that aid in feeding on the host's blood. Both genal and pronotal combs are absent and the adult flea has a rounded head. Most fleas are distributed in the egg, larval, or pupal stages.
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 ...
Some people think there are insects called sand fleas that bite you. But some experts say the creature that bites you and the sand flea are likely entirely different beasts.
Fleas (Siphonaptera) such as Echidnophaga gallinacea, range from 2–6 millimetres in length and have bodies which are flattened laterally or appear compressed horizontally when viewed from above. [ 9 ] [ 12 ] The flea's body is designed to easily travel through hairs or feathers, allowing free movement throughout the host's body.