Flea facts
- Fleas date back 40 million years.
- Fleas can pull 160,000 times their own weight, which is like you pulling 2,679 double-decker buses.
A flea can jump 30,000 times without stopping.- Female cat fleas can drink 15 times their weight in blood.
- Fleas don't have ears and are virtually blind.
- Fleas can transmit diseases to humans. Fleas jumping from rats to humans transmitted the cause of the Black Plague in 1664, killing 70,000 people in London.
- The average flea is 2-3 mm long and weighs half a grain (equivalent to 32 milligrams or 0.03 grams). The world's biggest is the beaver flea, which reaches about 11mm.
- Fleas reverse direction with every jump.
- Flea larvae don't like the light so they move away from it, deep into carpets, cracks in flooring or any nook or cranny.
- In a Kiev museum, there's a flea that wears horseshoes made of real gold.
- When a flea jumps, it accelerates 50 times faster than a space shuttle.
Fleas can lay up to 1,500 eggs in a lifetime.- Flea brides and grooms (dressed, but dead) were popular collector’s items in the 1920s.
- Flea pupae can live for up to 1 year in homes.
- Fleas can jump over 150 times their own size (approximately 30cm high) - which is like you jumping over St Paul's Cathedral.
- A flea’s life cycle can be as short as 14 days or up to 12 months.
- 95% of flea eggs, larvae and pupae live in beds, rugs, carpets and sofas - not on your pet.
- Just one flea can become 1,000 on your pet and in your home in only 21 days.
- Flea circuses originated in England in the 16th century.
