"Fleabag" is also a term, sometimes used
affectionately with
cats or
kittens who are infested with the
common cat flea. This little
critter may be better known by it's
scientific name,
Ctenocephalides felis felis. Very often young kittens who have been living both inside and outside (or having access to the outside) or who have
exposure to other animals that go outside, will be
infested with these
jumping,
biting insects.
A cat infested with fleas will often scratch and chew at their body, legs and feet in an effort to itch the bites]. Fleas can also jump to humans, but we're not nearly as tasty to them.
Fleabags, or rather, the unluckily infested cats and kittens, have a variety of treatments available to them, from baths to ointments such as "Advantage" (which incidentally, works very well). Some of these treatments will cause the fleas to literally jump ship and hurl themselves from the cat. If they do this they may be dead or dying already. If they do, go get em! Catch the little buggers and squish them with your fingernail on the linoleum or some other hard surface. The Pop sound indicates that they are dead.
Fleas are quite extraordinary creatures. They have a very strong exoskeleton that is waterproof, shock resistant and able to survive high pressure at 140 g's. When jumping, fleas accelerate 50 times faster than the space shuttle when it leaves the earth, and it's only thanks to it's hard exoskeleton that it doesn't squish itself with the power of it's own jump.
An analogy of if a flea were human, they could jump over St. Paul's Cathedral 600 times for 3 days! Now imagine a tiny, cute kitten with a few hundred of these insects all through it's fur... now that's a fleabag!