Re: why don't horses (or any hooved mammal) have fleas.

I copied this off of the internet. Hoofed animals are not mentioned specifically, but notice the number of species of fleas and the number of animals they infect. I am aware that there are dog fleas and cat fleas, so I am sure there are certain species of fleas that like horses or cows, they may not be abundant in America, but I would imgine they can be a pest in other countries. Since 1979, for the more than 20 years the Laboratory of Parasitology, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, has been conducting studies on morphology, systematics, ecology and fauna of fleas. The Institute's collection comprises 15,000 whole mounts in balsam and 3,500 items in alcohol. This collection now contains approximately 50,000 specimens of adults and larvae of 542 flea species of the fauna of Russia and neighbouring countries. Dr. Valentin Vashchonok created a database on ecology of species of the fauna of the former Soviet Union and conducted studies of flea morphology and physiology. Dr. Sergei Medvedev, based on his own morphological studies, including analysis of 5,000 photographs obtained from scanning microscope, proposed and corroborated a new classification of the order, created an information analytical system on the world's fauna of the order. For this and other information see pages of our website http://www.zin.ru/Animalia/Siphonaptera/index.htm The world fauna of the order Siphonaptera comprises 2000 species and 550 subspecies belonging to 18 families and 4 infraorders. A great number of endemic species and genera are distributed in East Asian, Central-Asian, West-American, Patagonian, Papuan (New Guinean), and East-African zoogeographical subregions. It is possible that forest foothills with temperate and subtropical climate present the most favorable conditions for the fleas. The infraorder Pulicomorpha is characterized by more or less relations between the faunas of Africa and Asia, Asia and South America. The existence of the Antarctic bridge in the Southern hemisphere and the Beringian bridge in the Northern hemisphere had the most significant influence on the distribution of the infraorders Pygiopsyllomorpha, Hystrichopsyllomorpha, and Ceratophyllomorpha. The world flea fauna includes about 2000 species, belonging, according to our classification (Medvedev, 1994), to 18 families. In database of our analytical information system PARHOST1, host-parasite relations of 1951 species of the Siphonaptera were analyzed, of which 1835 flea species were found on 1606 mammal species and 214 flea species on 543 bird species. Thus, the ratio of parasite and host (mammal and bird) species is 1.1:1 and 1:2.5, respectively. At the level of genera this ratio is 1:2.1 and 1:4.2 for mammals and birds, respectively. At the level of families - 1:5.1 and 1:7.4, respectively. This guy sure loves his fleas! Check out the photos on the site. Thanks for the question. Janet Hoff