Answer: Cat fleas (Ctenocephalides felis) are parasitic and survive by sucking the blood the blood of their host. However, cat fleas will readily transfer to people and dog as well as cats; in fact, cat fleas are the most common fleas on both cats and dogs. The adult fleas are small, brown, wingless insects with bodies flattened from side to side, and are just large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Occasionally cats are infested with fleas from other species, such as rabbits, birds, and particularly hedgehogs. In North America smaller fleas, stick-tight fleas, are sometime found firmly attached to the skin of the cat, especially around the face, and are best removed with tweezers. A survey in London showed that almost 60% of cats were infected with fleas.
They are important for five reasons:
1 Their bites cause extreme irritation so that the cat may bite and scratch at itself.
2 Some cats become allergic to the salvia which the flea injects as it bites and will react to even single flea bite. They will have very inflamed moist areas of skin, or more commonly several small crusty scabs, usually on the back just in front of the tail.
3 A heavy flea infestation, especially in kittens, can result in so much blood being lost that anemia develops.
4 As the flea bites, some of the blood taken from one cat may be transferred to the next, and in the first cat was in a certain stage of an infectious disease, along with the blood there may also be transferred bacteria, such as Haemobartonnella felis which causes infectious anemia, or virus such as those causing feline infectious enteritis.
5 Fleas can transmit the common tapeworm of the cat (Dipylidium caninum). A cat infected with the tapeworm will from time to time shed from its anus segments of the worm containing eggs. If one of these tapeworm eggs happens to be eaten by a flea larva it eventually develops into a cystic from inside the adult flea. Then if this flea should subsequently be swallowed by a cat as it grooms itself, the cystic from develops into a new tapeworm in the cat’s intestine. If the infected flea is eaten by a dog, or even child, then the tapeworm will develop in the dog’s or child’s intestine.
