Do Male Fleas Drink Blood?
WouterThe answer to the question “Do male fleas drink blood?” is no. Fleas are not obligate blood-suckers, but they do love to live on warm-blooded animals, such as humans. Fleas live for up to 100 days without a blood meal. Without this food, they can’t lay eggs, and their population would decline. However, once they do get a blood meal, they can lay eggs immediately or within a few days.
Fleas are ectoparasites of humans and animals. More than two thousand species have been described and classified. Of these, only about 30 species are common in Missouri. The most common are the cat flea, human flea, dog flea, and oriental rat flea. Fleas are a health risk because they can transmit disease.
Fleas are very hungry parasites. They feed on blood from warm-blooded hosts, and they use this as a breeding ground. Male fleas can live for 100 days without eating, and female fleas can eat up to 15 times their own body weight in blood per day. A female flea can feed up to 50 babies in one day!
Female fleas lay eggs, which are smooth and whitish in color. They lay up to 800 eggs in their lifetime. The adult flea is about a millimeter in length and lacks pronotal ctenidia. The life cycle of this flea is similar to that of other species of fleas. A female flea expands her body by 80 percent during its pupation stage.
