If you think these are scary.....

• A female flea sucks up to 30 times her weight in blood and excretes six times her weight in flea baby food: blood-rich, nutrient-packed feces.
• Fleas can transmit tapeworms and can cause severe skin irritation in pets.
• A flea can jump more than eight inches high - the equivalent of a human jumping over the Statue of Liberty
• One female flea can lay 25 to 50 eggs on a cat or dog each day

• Lyme disease, which can be transmitted to both pets and humans by the bite of infected deer ticks, affects more than 16,000 Americans each year
• Ticks have harpoon-like barbs on their mouths to attach to the host for feeding and a sticky secretion to help them hold on
• Ticks can carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which strikes 300 to 400 Americans a year
• Some species of ticks lay about 100 eggs at a time; others lay 3,000 to 6,000 per batch

• Mosquitoes can transmit heartworm and other disease by biting an infected animal, then passing the infection to another animal
• Heartworms, which develop in the skin then migrate to the heart, can grow to more than 12 inches long and can be fatal to cats and dogs
• Mosquitoes can carry the sometimes-fatal West Nile virus to humans and some animals
• One female may lay 100 to 300 eggs at a time and may average 1,000 to 3,000 offspring during her life span