RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

Fleas have been around for millions of years and can live for about 100 days! Here's more interesting facts about fleas.

• Fleas do not fly. They jump from one place to another.
• A pair of fleas can produce 2,000 offspring in their lifetime.
• The Flea life cycle is similar to the butterfly life cycle. Female Fleas lay eggs that turn in to grub-like larvae. The larvae then develop into pupae and settle inside a cocoon. They wait for a host to start their life and suck blood.
• In a typical room, 5 percent of the fleas will be found on pets, 10 percent flea cocoons in the carpets, 35 percent flea larvae and 50 percent flea eggs, again in the carpets.
• When something warm moves by the pupae, they unzip the cocoon and jump on the animal or human body. All this happens in three seconds and the flea can jump as high as four feet.
• A flea can jump up to 8 inches high. That is 150 times its own height. If you could do this, you'd be able to leap over even tall skyscrapers.
• It is important to get rid of fleas by simple methods as these insects cause serious diseases in humans and pets.

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Flea's Jump Analyzed By Scientists

The age-old mystery of how fleas jump 100 times their height has been solved - and it's their toes not legs that are key.

It has long been known that fleas store the energy needed to catapult themselves up in an elastic-like pad above the hind legs.

But there has been 44 years of constant debate about how the tiny insects use this energy to travel around 100 times their height.

And now, in the first study of its kind, two researchers used high speed recording equipment to examine the exact movements involved and proved that they push off using their toes.

Using hedgehog fleas, they filmed 51 jumps from 10 of the animals.

In the majority of jumps, two parts of the flea's complicated legs - the toe and knee - were in contact with the ground for the push off.

But in 10 per cent of the jumps, only the toe touched the ground.

The duo could see that the insects continued accelerating during take-off - even when the knee was no longer pushing down - and those that jumped without using the knee accelerated in exactly the same way as those that jumped using both the knee and toe.

Furthermore, when they looked at the flea's leg with scanning electron microscopy - a microscope in which a finely focused beam of electrons is scanned across them - the shin and toe had gripping claws but the knee was completely smooth - so it couldn't get a good enough grip to push off.

They suspected that the insects push down through the shin onto the toe, as previous research has suggested, but they needed a mathematical model to reproduce the flea's movement and prove their argument.

Source = The telegraph

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA