Flea life cycle and development

Depending on the local environmental factors and climatic conditions, the entire flea life cycle ranges from a few weeks to one year. A flea can live only for one to two weeks without a host. There are four stages in a flea’s life cycle. There are roughly 50% eggs, 35% larvae, 10% pupae, and 5% adults in a population of fleas.

Eggs

The life cycle begins when an adult female flea lays eggs following a blood meal from the host. Flea eggs are not sticky as other parasites. A single adult female can lay up to 40 eggs a day. These eggs take between two days and two weeks to hatch into larva.

Larva

Flea eggs hatch into larva in your pet’s bedding, carpets, and soft furnishings and take several weeks to develop. They are white, legless, almost invisible, and up to 3-5.2 mm long at this stage. The larvae will start spinning a cocoon in about 5-20 days of hatching from their eggs.

Pupa

Given an adequate supply of food, a cocoon emerges from the larva. This can take just four days but under adverse conditions several days to sometimes up to a year. Fleas are the hardest to eliminate while in the pupa stage.

Adult

Adult fleas start feeding within several hours after emerging from the pupal stage. After the first meal, adult fleas will breed and females will lay eggs within 48 hours. Fleas in the pupal stage will become adults more rapidly if there is warmth and high humidity.