Flea Bites
To finish, we present a few of the lesser-known facts about fleas that we've accumulated during 17 years in the business of flea control: |
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| Flea Species |
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Fleas and Health
- Fleas were responsible for one of the greatest changes in the UK’s social history. The Black Rat Flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) was responsible for transmitting what was then called Black Death in the mid-14th century.
- These deaths decimated the workforce of labourers in what was still a predominantly agricultural Britain. Survivors found themselves in much greater demand and they could command very much higher wages. The balance of power consequently shifted dramatically from landowner to farm worker.
- Later outbreaks of Black Death — now known as Bubonic Plague — were transmitted by the same species of flea. These outbreaks caused a further 35,000 deaths in 1625 and 20,000 in 1665 — in London alone.
- The flea population itself has been decimated by the outbreak of disease. Most notably when myxomatosis was introduced to kill around 100 million rabbits in the UK. Collateral damage included an estimated seven billion rabbit fleas.
- The great metaphysical poet, John Donne (1572-1631) wrote an ode titled "On A Flea On His Mistress' Bosom." Here we publish a short extract:
Madam, that flea which crept between your brest
I envyde that there he should make his rest;
The little creature's fortune was soe good
That angells' feed not on so precious food
How it did sucke, how eagerly sucke you!
Madam, shall fleas before me tickle you?
- Men belonging to the Lundaya Murats tribe based in Borneo can be fined one pig if caught picking the fleas from the hair of a married woman.
- The male flea sports an organ approximately 2.5 times the length of its own body — the largest, relative to its size, of any insect.
- Also a useful part of the male's sexual equipment are two antennae bearing sink-plunger-like suckers. It was believed that these were used to subdue the female. Top thinkers amongst the flea intelligencia now believe that the male needs these suckers just to hang on during the act. If you doubt the necessity for this, bear in mind that when a flea jumps, it does so with an acceleration roughly equal to that of the Apollo space rocket.
- The female flea lays her eggs at a prodigious rate. An average of about 30-40 a day. A single female flea will probably lay around 100 eggs during her adult lifespan. That's a theoretical 50 new breeding pairs — each producing another 100 eggs. You can see how a minor problem can rapidly develop into a bad infestation.
- The instrument of choice amongst flea musicians worldwide is the ukelele. It was so named in 1878 after a Portugese sailor arrived in Hawaii bearing a braguinho - a guitar-like instrument. As he played, the locals thought his fingers as nimble as dancing fleas, or in the Hawaiian language, uke (dancing) lele (flea).
- One of Britain’s oldest games can trace its origins to the flea. In approximately 15 different European languages, the word ‘tiddlywinks’ translates as ‘the game of the flea.’
- Fleas have been used as a notably unsuccessful method of blackmail. In 1996, a transexual named Lydia Banot was jailed for eight years at the Old Bailey after blackmailing Harrods. The sex-change extortionist had threatened to release a plague of fleas in the designer clothing department unless a demand for £5 million was met. There’s optimism for you.
