A Flea is a common tiny wingless insect. Fleas, being outside parasites, live by hematophagy off the blood of mammals and birds that they live on. There is several different species of fleas, with the most widely known being:
- Cat Flea
- Northern Rat Flea
- Dog Flea
It is rare that flea's become damaging to their host; in most cases they are nuisances. There can however become an issue when the host suffers an allergic reaction to the flea saliva. Spots where fleas bite are normally visible by a slightly raised and itchy swolled spot, that will have a single puncture at the middle.
- Oriental Rat Flea
Fleas are busy tiny insects and will pass through a complete life cycle, egg to adult, in as short as weeks to as long as eight months, depending on surroundings conditions. Usually after a blood meal a female flea will lay eggs, about 15 per day, and up to about 600 in its whole lifetime. The eggs are usually layed on the host, and will sometimes drop off the host. These Flea eggs take between two days to two weeks to hatch.
It is important to note that opposite to what I said above, fleas can transmit diseases. This is a rare scenario, but does happen, and an example is the bubonic plague where the disease was transferred between rodents and humans. If that is not bad Murine typhus fever and even some cases of tapeworms can be transmitted by fleas.
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