Cat Flea

• It jumps more than a hundred times its own length thanks to a block of resilin, an elastic protein that stores energy like a spring and releases it all at once.
• Only a tiny fraction of the population is on the animal: the eggs, larvae and pupae build up in carpets, beds and cracks in the floor, which is why treating the pet alone never clears an infestation.
• It transmits the tapeworm Dipylidium caninum and the bacterium that causes cat scratch disease.
• It is the commonest flea in the world on dogs and cats, and also the one that most often bites people.
• The adult needs a blood meal every hour, so once it finds a host it does not leave it.
• The eggs are not sticky: they fall out of the coat like grains of salt, so the real nest is the carpet or the animal's bed, not the animal.
• The pupa can hold on for months inside its cocoon and emerges only on a specific cue: warmth, physical pressure or carbon dioxide — in other words, a host arriving.
• It transmits Bartonella henselae, the bacterium of cat scratch disease, and Rickettsia felis.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

The coats of cats, dogs and other mammals, and the carpets and textiles of the home

Size at birth

Oval egg of about 0.5 mm; newly hatched larva of 1.5 mm, reaching 5 mm before pupating

Gestation / incubation

The eggs hatch between one and three weeks; the full cycle from egg to adult takes between 30 and 75 days

Litter / clutch size

From 20 to 30 eggs a day and about 600 over its lifetime; under optimal conditions about 25 a day for a month

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenocephalides_felis; EBSCO Research Starters; ScienceDirect, Cat flea; Oklahoma State University Extension; EBSCO Research Starters, ficha Cat flea; University of Georgia IPM, ficha Ctenocephalides felis