Fleas

Posted in Featured, Insects

Fleas undergo what is called a “complete” life cycle.  The four stages are the egg, larva, pupa, and the adult.   The larva is a scavenger, feeding on whatever organic material it can find.  It is only the adult flea that bites.  However, one very important ingredient in the organic meal found by the larva is dried blood.  The source of this meal are the fecal drops from the adult fleas after they feed on your pet.

Interesting facts:

• A flea may remain in its cocoon for as long as 6 months, waiting for a stimulus to cause it to emerge as an adult.  Once stimulated by weather, temperature, or vibration, it can hatch in only 1 second and begin feeding in a mere 3 seconds.
• A single female flea can lay up to 2,000 eggs in her lifetime, with as many as 50 eggs per day.  Under ideal conditions, with all of the offspring surviving and breeding, a single pair of fleas could produce 2 trillion offspring in only nine months.  To support her huge production of eggs,  a female flea may consume up to fifteen times her own body weight in blood each day.
• A flea is capable of jumping up to 8 inches high, or about 150 times its own height.  This would be the equivalent of a human leaping over 1,000 feet high.  It can jump horizontally about 13 inches, or 100 times its body length.
• Fleas can survive for months without feeding.  They can remain frozen for a year and survive inside an impenetrable cocoon during that period of time.  When first emerged as a hungry adult flea they can jump up to 40,000 times without a break in search for food.