🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

Sand fleas are commonly known as beach fleas, sand hoppers, or beach hoppers. Despite their common name, sand fleas are not actually fleas. In fact, they aren’t even insects. Sand fleas are very small crustaceans, in the Amphipod order. Sand fleas jump like fleas and are difficult to capture which may be how they got their common name, not because they actually bite people.

Sand fleas are very small, and are usually anywhere from a quarter of an inch up to an inch in length. They live on sandy beaches near the high-tide mark. They are most active at night, when they’ll emerge to forage for food. During the day, they’ll stay buried in the sand.

Most of the time, sand fleas bite your toes and feet because they come in contact with humans walking around the beach. Male sand fleas feed on a host, mate with female fleas, then die.

Female sand fleas are much more dangerous. After mating, they burrow into your skin and latch onto a blood supply to continue feeding. When burrowing, they leave the caudal tip of their abdomen exposed outside of your skin so they can defecate and drop eggs. You may be able to spot them on your feet if you see this small brown tip sticking out, so be sure to examine your skin after a trip to the beach.

While sitting just under the skin, female sand fleas begin filling with hundreds of eggs. It’s usually during this time that people notice pain, discomfort, and itching as the flea grows in size.