We know too little about the geographical distribution of fleas to lay
down many accurate generalities. When a great deal more material has
been collected and studied, it may be possible to show that certain
groups are associated with certain regions of the earth or certain
orders of animals. To some extent this is already seen to be the case.
The fleas indigenous to the New World are distantly related to those
of the Old World. Broadly speaking the geographical distribution of the
parasite must follow that of the host. But sometimes the parasite is
impatient of cold and cannot follow the host out of the tropics. The
chigoes and their allies are fleas of hot countries. Different kinds
of bats are found from the tropics to the Arctic circle, but the same
bat-fleas are not found everywhere.
When a flea has a cosmopolitan range it is probable that it has
travelled over the world in company with its host.
Monkeys have no fleas. This is an assertion that is commonly received
with surprise and incredulity. Occasionally a gorilla or a chimpanzee
may get a chigoe in its toe. And monkeys in zoological gardens or
menageries are possibly exposed to the danger of catching an occasional
human flea from the people who crowd round their cages. These are
remote contingencies which may happen to anyone. Healthy wild monkeys
are much too clean and active to harbour fleas. When they search one
another’s fur in a fashion that must be familiar to most persons, they
are clearing their coats of particles of scurf or of similar scraps of
dirt and not of fleas. So, speaking generally, it may be said that no
fleas have been found truly parasitic on monkeys.
Bats have fleas, but not in great abundance. All bat-fleas are rare
on their hosts and extremely difficult to find and collect. The
same species are not found on fruit-bats and the ordinary smaller
insect-eating bats. The geographical distribution of some bat-fleas is
puzzling. For instance, one species (_Ischnopsylla unipectinata_) is
found on the greater horse-shoe bat in Europe; but it is, apparently,
not found on the same bat in the British Islands. In Somaliland and in
India it is found on other bats.
With certain exceptions, Ungulates are remarkably free from fleas. This
great order of mammals includes a variety of hoofed animals: oxen,
sheep, goats, deer, pigs, camels, giraffes and antelopes.
The only true fleas found on these are two species of the genus
_Vermipsylla_, which resemble the chigoes in so far that the pregnant
females burrow into the host and expand there. One species has been
found on camels and horses in Transcaucasia; another on roe-deer in
Northern China. The female of the last is often found ensconced on
the inside of the nostrils of the deer. Of course chigoes may attack
domestic Ungulates of all kinds; but no other members of the family
_Pulicidæ_ or typical fleas except those two above mentioned have been
found on hoofed mammals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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