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How to catch fleas in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Fleas are one of the bugs in New Horizons that aren’t caught the same way as the rest

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An Animal Crossing character holds up a flea next to a purple frog Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon
Julia Lee (she/her) is a guides producer, writing guides for games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Genshin Impact. She helped launch the Rift Herald in 2016.

Unlike most of the other bugs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch, Fleas need to be caught in a unique way: off your villager’s heads.

From April until November for Northern Hemisphere players and from October until May for Southern Hemisphere players, you may find a flea-infested villager. They’ll have little black dots jumping off them and when you talk to them, they’ll talk about being itchy. Gross!

To nab the flea, just hit them with your net. They’ll look sad at first, but then they’ll be relieved that you found the cause of their itchiness.

An Animal Crossing character hits a frog with a net, getting a flea off her head. Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Fleas only sell for 70 Bells, but there is a Nook Mileage achievement for nabbing fleas off your villagers, so they’re worth grabbing. (It would also be somewhat cruel to purposely leave your villagers flea-ridden.)

But don’t worry, there’s no penalty for leaving your villagers covered in fleas, as the fleas won’t spread around or anything like that.


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