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Fleas Flee With Vacuum
December 19, 2007 at 2:39 PM
General Health News
The studies were conducted on the cat flea, or Ctenocephalides felis, the most common type of flea plaguing companion animals and humans.
Researchers also tested vacuum bags for toxicity and exposed fleas to churning air in separate tests to further explore potential causes of flea death.
They believed that the damaging effects of the brushes, fans and powerful air currents in vacuum cleaners combine to kill the fleas. The study used a single model of an upright vacuum, but researchers don't think the vacuum design has much bearing on the results.
No matter what vacuum a flea gets sucked into, it's probably a one-way trip, said Glen Needham, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State and a co-author of the study.
Researchers theorized that the vacuum brushes wear away the cuticle, a waxy outer later on fleas and most insects that allows the bugs to stay hydrated. Without the waxy protection, the adult fleas, larvae and pupae probably dry up and die, he said.
We didn't do a post-mortem, so we don't know for sure. But it appears that the physical abuse they took caused them to perish, he said.
Six tests of vacuuming the adult fleas yielded an average of 96 percent of fleas killed; three tests of vacuumed pupae and one test of vacuumed larvae (in their third stage of development) resulted in 100 percent killed.
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