Blood feeding arthropods are of great concern to the public not only because of their annoying and often painful bites, but more importantly because many are vectors of pathogens.

More than 2,400 species exist worldwide.
Attracted to animals by body heat, movement and the carbon dioxide that animals exhale.
Adults feed on blood; larvae feed on organic debris.
Found on cats and dogs year-round, but most common during warm and humid weather.
Life span on dogs is typically more than 100 days  enough time for a pair of fleas and their descendants to produce millions of offspring. Under ideal conditions, assuming no mortality, a pair of fleas has the potential to produce more than 20 trillion descendants in one year.
Found on opossums, rats, other rodents and humans.
Can transmit tapeworms from dogs and rodents to other animals and humans.
Can jump up to 150 times the length of their body.
Transmit several major human diseases including plague, murine typhus, Bartonellosis and tapeworms.