What do Fleas Look Like?

Are you bothered by flea infestation? Have you ever wondered what do fleas look like? Has your pet been scratching and biting itself more these days? If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you’re already searching for a pest exterminator. However, what do fleas look like? Aren’t you curious to know what these pests look like?

Being able to identify these fleas will help you to get rid of them faster. Once you know what they look like, you become more careful in looking out for them and eliminating them as quickly as possible.

These pests feast on blood and debris found in the woods. But more than anything else, they love to feed on blood. That’s why they can be easily found hiding in the fur coat of your pets. What’s more? Because of their size, they can hide for a long period of time before being discovered.

By the time you find them, they must have caused your dog/cat to have bald patches of fur no thanks to incessant scratching and biting. If your pet is hypersensitive, its skin may begin to react to the saliva of the fleas when bitten, and this can lead to skin irritation for your darling pets.

Do you know that fleas hide in your bedding too? Do you know their bites (fleabites) can cause welts to appear on your skin? Although they are not disease-carrying insects, do you know that their bites can cause you skin irritation?

All of these are the several ways that fleas make life difficult for human beings. If you’ve been seeing any of the symptoms described above, now is the time to begin your search.

There are a number of ways you can identify a flea, including,

By Size

Fleas are one of the smallest insects you’ll find around. They’re usually between 1 – 4 millimeters long and have flat bodies. This size enables them to hide in floor cracks, your bedding and also on your pets.

No thanks to this small size, most people think fleas cannot be seen with the ordinary eyes.

This is wrong. You do not need a microscope to find fleas. Although they’re pretty tiny, you can still see them if you carefully look for them. One way to find them is to comb your pet’s fur while gently running your hand through their skin, especially their back and their inner thigh.

When you find them, they’ll be attached to your pet’s skin, sucking blood with their mandible.

Appearance

Fleas are brown or reddish-brown in color. This can depend, largely, on how much blood that a specific flea has sucked. A flea, once attached to a host, can bite every five minutes. This makes the host uncomfortable and sore.

Fleas do not have wings; neither do they fly. If you have seen an insect that has wings, that’s not a flea. You’re probably wondering how they move from one place to another.

Fleas possess powerful back legs with which they jump onto their hosts. It’s usually one of the longest parts of their bodies.

The life cycle of a flea involves the following:

Eggs

Female fleas lay between 35 – 40 eggs daily. They usually lay these eggs on their host. As their host moves about, these eggs spread into the home environment

Larvae

Eggs become larvae after 2 – 10 days of being laid. Most times, they move away from light and hide under baseboards and deep inside upholstery

Pupae

Over time, the larva matures into an adult flea by creating a cocoon and staying inside it till it reaches maturity. With the help of this cocoon, the flea is protected from most forms of pest extermination. In other words, this cocoon helps to keep the flea safe. A flea matures within three weeks and remains in the pupae until it detects a food source

Adult

This is the flea that most people recognize. It’s also the type that most people look for. In your search for fleas, you shouldn’t only concentrate on finding the adults. You should also look out for fleas in their other forms.

What do fleas look like? Now that you know the answer to this question, you can start your search for fleas in your environment. And when you find them, make quick moves to get rid of them as soon as possible.