Can cat fleas bite humans? The answer is, yes. Although, this is a bit academic, I think, because how often do you think you have been bitten by a cat flea and how do you know?
That said my research indicates that people want to know.
I have a confession to make. I am certain I have been bitten by a cat flea! Shameful isn’t it…Well not really. I regularly comb both my cats for fleas. In any case they like it. It is like giving them effleurage or a kind of scalp massage. Charlie with his single coat prefers it more than my lady cat as the comb goes through the fur more easily.
Both are flea free at the moment (I hope) but as they both go outside they can pick them up. When you comb a cat with a flea comb, as you might have discovered, you pick them up on the comb and they can then jump off back onto the cat or in this case onto me. You have to be fast and attack them with brutal force while on the comb! Well, that is my style, anyway. On one or two occasions one has jumped off the comb onto my arm and I have not noticed, where they have bitten me. The bite leaves a small bump and the area is itchy for a while – the usual kind of thing.
As we know cat fleas are blood suckers and astonishingly g
ood jumpers. If we were fleas we could jump over a house.
Fleas are incredibly strong too; taking a considerable amount of precision to crush them to death. They still wriggle when flattened. It's war..... They can also live for long periods without feeding and jump on and off the host.
We should always monitor, on a daily basis, our cats for cat fleas (Ctenocephalides felis). Cat fleas are part of the life cycle of the tapeworm (see tapeworms in felines – and cat flea life cycle). Cat fleas infest dogs too.
Associated pages:
Controlling cat fleas (in a standard one or two cat home)
Can cat fleas bite humans - Photo top right: published under a published under Wikimedia® creative commons license license = Attribution-ShareAlike License - Original uploader was Andybrookestar at en.wikipedia
Photo bottom right - unknown source – photo in the public domain.
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