General Aspects
Taxonomy
In C. felis there are four recognised subspecies throughout the world, all of which are primarily parasites of carnivores (Lewis, 1972; Hopkins and Rothschild, 1953).
C. felis damarensis and C. felis strongylus are restricted to Africa, C. felis orientis is found in southeast Asia and the East Indies (Lewis, 1972), primarily infesting cattle, sheep and goats, whereas the first two are found as parasites of wild carnivores (Dryden, 1993).
C. felis felis is found worldwide on many species of wild and domesticated animals (Rust and Dryden, 1997). It is the only subspecies that occurs in North America (Dryden, 1993) and is often only referred to as C. felis.
C. felis felis was probably introduced quite recently into Europe when domestic cats were imported at the time of the Crusades (Petter, 1973; Beaucournu, 1990). Believed to originate from Africa, the so-called ‘cat flea’ C. felis is now cosmopolitan, ranging from warm tropical areas to temperate zones with prolonged subfreezing temperatures (Lewis, 1972).
New investigations in the field of taxonomic differentiation by using the phallosome structures as identification propose the status of C. orientis and C. damarensis as a full species (Ménier and Beaucournu, 1998).
The morphological differentiation between C. felis and C. canis as well as some other major flea species is given in Fig. 1, Fig. 2 and Table 1.
Pictural key to Dog and Cat fleas
Ctenocephalides felis | Ctenocephalides canis | |||
male | female | male | female | |
Shape of head capsule |
|
|
|
|
Spine 1 and 2 of the genal comb |
Both 1st and 2nd spine have the same length |
1st spine is half as long as 2nd spine | ||
Number of teeth of tibiae |
Tibiae of all 6 legs have 4 to 5 teeth |
Tibiae of all 6 legs have 7 to 8 teeth | ||
Figure 1: Morphological differentiation of the cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis) and the dog flea (Ctenocephalides canis); original size upper right: 3.0 mm
Table 1: General morphological differentiation using the presence or absence of pronotal and genal combs in fleas
Without combs present |
Only pronotal combs present | Pronotal and genal combs present | |
Only few combs present | Several combs | ||
Xenopsylla cheopis | Nosopsyllus fasciatus | Ischnopsylliadae (Bat fleas) | Spilopsyllus cuniculi |
Pulex irritans | Ceratophyllus gallinae | Archaeophsylla errinacei | Leptopsylla segnis |
Echidnophaga | Diamanus montanus | Ctenocephalides canis | |
Orchopeas howardii | Ctenocephalides felis | ||
Cediopsylla simplex (Common eastern rabbit flea) | |||
Further information
- Beaucournu JC: Les puces synanthropes. Bull Soc Franç Parasitol. 1990, 8, 145-56
- Dryden MW: Biology of fleas of dogs and cats. Comp Cont Educ Pract Vet. 1993, 15, 569-79
- Hopkins GHE, Rothschild M: An illustrated catalogue of the Rothschild collection of fleas (Siphonaptera) in the British Museum (Natural History). Vol. I-IV. 1953, University Press, Cambridge
- Lewis RE: Notes on the geographic distribution and host preferences in the order Siphonaptera. Part 1. Pulicidae. J Med Entomol. 1972, 9, 511-20
- Ménier K, Beaucournu JC: Taxonomic study of the genus Ctenocephalides Stiles & Collins, 1930 (Insecta: Siphonaptera: Pulicidae) by using aedegous characters. J Med Entomol. 1998, 35, 883-90
- Petter F: Les animaux domestiques et leurs ancêtres. 1973, Bordas Edition, Paris
- Rust MK, Dryden MW: The biology, ecology, and management of the cat flea. Ann Rev Entomol. 1997, 42, 451-73
