Taxonomy: Order Siphonaptera (fleas)
Animal: Ctenocephalides felis felis (pathology) 5 05.jpg
Sites: Skin
Comment:
Cat with flea allergy due to infestation with Ctenocephalides felis felis. As well as causing allergy, cat fleas (C felis felis) act as the intermediate hosts for Dipylidium caninum, the double pored tapeworm of definitive hosts- dogs, cats and occasionally humans (see slides of Dipylidium caninum). Other flea species have been reported to also act as intermediate hosts for this tapeworm but experimentally only Xenopsylla cheopis was found to be a suitable alternative intermendiate host; Ctenocephalides canis (dog flea) and Nosopsyllus londinensis were not - possibly due to their physiology and/or the strong cellular immune reaction that was observed. The definitive host is infected when they accidentally ingest the flea host containing fully developed infective metacestodes. Development to adult worms takes 14-20 days. (Pugh RE PhD thesis)

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