OH FLEAS! THAT IS GROSS!

Fleas (at least cat fleas) require a meal of blood (anautogenous) before they can mate.  Mating can begin after 24 hours of blood-feeding.  Mating lasts for 2 to 157 minutes with a mean duration of 60 minutes.  (Geez is anyone else wondering who spent time looking through a microscope and timing flea sex?  Does it become a contest?  Do the scientists find themselves saying things like, “You are only 2 minutes away from the record Flea-Bob.  Keep going!”)  Really, if sex after a blood meal isn’t enough, how about this tidbit… to reach maximum fertility the females must mate with multiple partners.  (So, as a scientist, thinking through this… you would have to mark your fleas to know whom is mating with whom which seems like a job for newbie researcher.  “Welcome Dr. Poopiepants (Captain Underpants fans will like this reference).  We will let you use the whiz bang machine, but first you must observe multiple mating events for fleas… and keep track of who is hanging with who.”)  But wait, there is more!  Male fleas that have not fed have a testicular plug that blocks sperm passage so they can’t mate.  The plug will breakdown within 24 hours of the first blood meal.  Starved males (or those with low protein diets) lack the energy to find a female and mate.  They must have blood.  If a blood meal is present and the little flea males (say that fast and it sounds like I wrote “females”) are ready to mate, then their sperm will flow faster at temperatures equal to their host animal.  And last but not least…all of this drama is happening on your cat.  Mike dropped.

I got much of this information from https://fleascience in case you want more.