Abstract
Abstract There are perhaps 3000 species and subspecies of fleas, belonging to about 200 genera in 15 families, but fortunately very few are of medical or veterinary importance. Some 95 per cent of all species feed on mammals, the others attacking birds and even lizards. Fleas irritate the host when they take their blood feeds and they may stimulate serious hypersensitivity reactions, but their prime importance is in the transmission of various diseases to man and animals. Medically, the key species are Xenopsylla cheopis, which transmits plague and murine typhus, Ctenocephalides spp., the dog and cat fleas, which may transmit certain tapeworms to man, and the sand flea or chigoe, Tunga penetrans, which buries itself in the skin of the toe or foot, causing boil-like lesions.
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