Flea Facts

All you wanted to know about fleas and more

Did you know fleas have quite a unique history and lifestyle too?

You know that fleas can "bug" you and your pet. But did you know fleas have quite a unique history and lifestyle too? Come along as we explore the "flea" facts about the number one pest "bugging" your pet.

  • Flea fossils date back to the Lower Cretaceous period, meaning fleas have been around for about 100 million years. At that time, their neighbors might have been a Tyrannosaurus Rex or Triceratops!
  • Some fleas can jump 150 times their own length. That compares to a human jumping 1,000 feet. One flea broke a record with a four-foot vertical jump.
  • Undisturbed and without a blood meal, a flea can live more than 100 days. On average, they live two to three months.
  • Female fleas cannot lay eggs until after their first blood meal and begin to lay eggs within 36-48 hours after that meal.
  • The female flea can lay 2,000 eggs in her lifetime; if all 53 million dogs in the U.S. each hosted a population of 60 fleas, we'd have more than six trillion flea eggs surrounding our pets. Laid end-to-end, those eggs would stretch around the world more than 76 times!
  • The female flea consumes 15 times her own body weight in blood daily.
  • While adult fleas all suck blood from a cat or dog or other mammal, their larvae live and feed on organic debris in the host animal's environment.
  • Flea larvae are blind.
  • If you happen to see one flea, there may be more than 100 offspring or adults looming nearby in furniture, corners, cracks, carpeting or on your pet.
  • The cat flea, which infests both cats and dogs, is a tropical insect and cannot tolerate freezing temperatures for long periods of time. However, they are well adapted to indoor living.
  • While there are more than 2,000 known species and subspecies of fleas, only one flea species -- the cat flea -- accounts for almost all the fleas found on cats and dogs in the United States.
  • Fleas are often confused with bedbugs, lice and ticks.
  • The largest recorded flea is the North American Hystrichopsylla schefferi, measuring 12mm in length - almost ½ inch!