Adult fleas are no larger than 1/8 inch long, so it is difficult to see a number of the characteristics used to describe them. These reddish-brown, wingless insects are laterally compressed, so they look as if they are walking on edge. Cat fleas have both pronotal and genal combs. They have piercing-sucking mouthparts through which they obtain blood meals from their hosts.

Unlike most fleas, adult cat fleas remain on the host where feeding, mating, and egg laying occur. Females lay about 20 to 50 eggs per day. Cat flea eggs are pearly white, oval, and about 1/32 inch long (Figure 3). The eggs are smooth and readily fall from the pet and land on surfaces such as bedding and carpeting in the animal’s environment. They hatch in about 2 to 5 days. Flea larvae are no larger than 3/16 inch long, hairy, and wormlike with a distinct, brownish head but no eyes or legs (Figure 4). The larvae feed on dried blood and excrement adult fleas produce while feeding on the pet. Larval development is restricted to protected places where there is at least 75% relative humidity. The larvae feed and crawl around for 8 to 15 days before building small, silken cocoons in which they pupate and develop into adults. Debris, such as pet hair or skin or carpet fibers, usually covers the pupae, providing visual camouflage. Flea larvae develop more quickly at higher temperatures, preferring areas that are 70° to 90°F. At cool temperatures, fully formed fleas can remain in their cocoons for up to 12 months. Warm temperatures and mechanical pressure caused by walking on or vacuuming carpet stimulate emergence from the cocoon. At normal room temperatures, the entire life cycle can occur in about 18 days. An adult cat flea generally lives about 30 to 40 days on the host. When normal grooming activity is restricted, 85% of adult females survived for 50 days. You can find fleas on pets throughout the year, but numbers tend to increase dramatically during spring and early summer when conditions favor larval development.

Damage

Recent advances in molecular research indicate cat fleas are capable of transmitting a murine-like typhus disease in humans, cat flea rickettsiosis. The symptoms are similar to murine typhus but less severe, including headaches, chills, fever, vomiting, and rash. This rickettsial agent is widely found in cats and cat fleas worldwide. It is likely that many previously diagnosed cases of murine typhus actually might have been cat flea rickettsiosis. Fleabites consist of a small, central, red spot surrounded by a red halo, usually without excessive swelling. They usually cause minor itching but can become increasingly irritating to people with sensitive or reactive skin. Some people and pets suffer from fleabite allergic dermatitis, characterized by intense itching, hair loss, reddening of the skin, and secondary infection. Just one bite can initiate an allergic reaction, and itching can persist up to 5 days after the bite. Cat fleas serve as intermediary hosts of dog and cat tapeworms. Cats or dogs can acquire this intestinal parasite while grooming themselves.

Adult males and females are active October-May, as long as the daytime temperature remains above freezing. Preferring larger hosts, such as deer, adult blacklegged ticks can be found questing about knee-high on the tips of branches of low growing shrubs. Adult females readily attack humans and pets. Once females fully engorge on their blood meal, they drop off the host into the leaf litter, where they can over-winter. Engorged females lay a single egg mass (up to 1500-2000 eggs) in mid to late May, and then die. Larvae emerge from eggs later in the summer. Unfed female Blacklegged ticks are easily distinguished from other ticks by th e orange-red body surrounding the black scutum. Males do not feed.

Damage

The tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) typically manifests itself in two phases of illness. In the first phase around 7 to 14 days after the insect bite certain people show flu like symptoms such as headaches, fever, fatigue, or painful joints. The symptoms disappear after a few days and a connection with the tick bite is seldom made. For most patients the illness is now over and they will most probably be immune for the rest of their life. For approximately 5-15% of patients after a symptom free phase there follows a second phase of illness with an attack on the central nervous system. The symptoms of this form of meningitis are bad headaches, aversion to light, dizziness, lack of concentration, difficulties of speech, sight and difficulty in walking. These symptoms can last for weeks even months. Certain patients can experience paralysis of arms, legs or facial nerves, which can lead to permanent disabilities. Approximately 1% of the patients die from this disease. With children it usually takes its course harmlessly without any lasting damage. There is no special therapy. The treatment aims at alleviating the symptoms. Lyme disease has a diversity of symptoms. Apart from the skin, the nervous system and the loco motor system the heart can also be affected. There are 3 stages to the illness. The first symptom is often a local inflammation of the skin, the so-called Erythema migrans, a circular rash. Several days after the bite a rash appears, which spreads out and becomes circular in appearance. This symptom only appears with around 30% of patients and is often located at the back of the knee, on the stomach, or on the shoulders. At the same time flu symptoms may occur. The first phase of the illness usually heals by itself within days to weeks. However a treatment with antibiotics is necessary to prevent the virus from spreading to other organs. After weeks or months for some of patients the second phase of the illness takes place, with the nervous system (dura mater, brain, facial nerves), the skin (swelling, etc) and rarely the heart (cardiac dysrythmia) being affected. If these symptoms are not recognised straight away and treated with antibiotics, irreversible damage can be done (i.e. arthritis, adermotrophia, changes in personality) (Phase III). The diagnosis of Lyme disease can be very difficult; laboratory tests do not help much in the first phase of the illness.

Bed bugs are small but visible insects. There are three main life stages: the whitish egg (about 1 mm in length), five pale juvenile(nymph) stages that range from 1mm to 4.5 mm (1/4 inch), and the adult which can be as long as 7 or 8 mm (3/8 inch) when fed. The newly hatched nymph is very pale until it feeds. Then it looks like a tiny droplet of blood. Each nymph stage will feed and become filled with red blood. The adult is about the size and shape of an apple seed, and dark red to brown in color and as flat as a credit card before feeding.

More frequently than not, bed bugs are undetectable. But some people might be very delicate to the bites. The redness or swelling with the bites is due the allergy that might develop from the saliva transmitted by bed bugs. Distinctively, bed bugs create a sweet odor which is a sign of large infestation in your household. Another manifestation of bed bugs is decayed spots or dried blood marks on your sheets. Generally, these spots point to their established dwellings. People have already been worried around the possible disease that bed bugs may transmit. Some medical researchers have related bites with vector diseases or harmful pathogens bed bugs may carry on their bodies. But each has been confirmed to be unlikely. With this fact at hand, bed bugs don’t pose a vital health threat to people. Medical focus has been focused around the irritation and inflammation produced from the bites. 

The members of Triatominae, are also known as conenose bugs, kissing bugs, assassin bugs, or triatomines. Most of the 130 or more species of this subfamily are haematophagous, i.e. feed on vertebrate blood; a very few species feed on other invertebrates (Sandoval et al. 2000, 2004). They are mainly found and widespread in the Americas, with a few species present in Asia, Africa, and Australia. These bugs usually share shelter with nesting vertebrates, from which they suck blood.

Damage

You can develop Chagas disease if you are bitten by a Kissing bug that carries the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. The bug picks up the parasite if it bites an infected person or animal before it bites you. As the bug sucks your blood, it defecates on your skin. If the bug’s feces don’t contain the parasite, you won’t get sick. Infection can occur if contaminated feces enter the bite or if you touch the feces and then touch your eyes, mouth or nose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that the infection also can pass from mother to baby during birth, or you might become infected through a blood transfusion or organ transplant, or by eating uncooked food if it contains infected feces from the Kissing Bug.