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This is a new one to me, but Zeke right now is living at the vet clinic I work at, and I was cleaning out his tank/basking area today and noticed HUNDREDS of dead bugs in and on top of his basking area (he has an above tank plastic container we rigged up for him), they were all dead, but the vet looked at them and they are fleas! EEEK! I am seriously doubting they can live on him since he's mostly in the water, but can turtles get fleas? I mean would they bite him if he's up basking? We washed out the enclosure really well and are going to keep an eye on it for any signs of them returning. We don't really have a flea problem where I live, in fact are lucky if we see 1 or 2 cases a year and mostly they have traveled outside of Utah to get them.

-------------------- Evidently there are fleas around and they may have been attracted to the light. This is a first for me! I am surprised that your turtles did not eat them. ???

Perhaps flea eggs were inside the plastic container and they didn't "rinse out" with water when the plastic container was first prepared for the turtle. Perhaps the plastic container housed a flea-ridden animal earlier..... months ago and the warmth of the basking area hatched out the fleas you saw?

Try to picture a turtle scratching it's flea bites , not that that would actually happen, but it does give a pretty silly cartoon image.