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Why do fleas live on dogs and cats?
Fleas are parasites. A parasite is a plant or animal that lives within or on another living organism. The bigger living organism is called the “host”.
The flea usually lives on dogs and cats (its hosts) by sucking blood. It has a small round head and mouth parts that are adapted to sucking. It has a tiny body, no wings and three pairs of legs.
By the way, those long hind legs of the flea make it a wonderful jumper. In fact, it is the champion jumper of all creatures. This tiny insect can jump 18020 centimeters into the air, and can leap forward at least 30 centimeters. For a man that would mean being able to jump 140 meters into the air and make a broad jump of 200 meters!
There are hundreds of species of fleas. The dog and cat type of flea is found almost everywhere in the world.
Fleas don’t just live in dogs and cats. They also infest rats, rabbits, squirrels, birds and nearly all other warm-blooded animals. Sometimes fleas can also live on human beings but they’ll always prefer a warm-blooded host to you.
During the Middle Ages flea infested rats spread bubonic plague throughout Europe.
The flea lived on the diseased rat until the rat died. Then it jumped to a human being, carrying with it germs of the disease. Cases of bubonic plague are rare now, but they still occur.
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