Louse is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result of developments in phylogenetic research.
Sucking lice have around 500 species and represent the smaller of the two traditional superfamilies of lice. As opposed to the paraphyletic chewing lice, which are now divided among three suborders, the sucking lice are monophyletic.
Pediculosis is an infestation of lice from the sub-order Anoplura, family Pediculidae. Accordingly, the infestation with head lice is named pediculosis capitis, while this with body lice, pediculosis corporis. Although pediculosis in humans may properly refer to lice infestation of any part of the body, the term is sometimes used loosely to refer to pediculosis capitis, the infestation of the human head with the specific head louse.
The head louse is an obligate ectoparasite of humans. Head lice are wingless insects that spend their entire lives on the human scalp and feed exclusively on human blood. Humans are the only known hosts of this specific parasite, while chimpanzees and bonobos host a closely related species, Pediculus schaeffi. Other species of lice infest most orders of mammals and all orders of birds.
Pediculus humanus is a species of louse that infects humans. It comprises two subspecies:
Trench fever is a moderately serious disease transmitted by body lice. It infected armies in Flanders, France, Poland, Galicia, Italy, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Russia and Egypt in World War I. Three noted cases during WWI were the authors J. R. R. Tolkien, A. A. Milne, and C. S. Lewis. From 1915 to 1918 between one-fifth and one-third of all British troops reported ill had trench fever while about one-fifth of ill German and Austrian troops had the disease. The disease persists among the homeless. Outbreaks have been documented, for example, in Seattle and Baltimore in the United States among injecting drug users and in Marseille, France, and Burundi.
The treatment of human lice is the removal of head lice parasites from human hair. It has been debated and studied for centuries. However, the number of cases of human louse infestations has increased worldwide since the mid-1960s, reaching hundreds of millions annually. There is no product or method that assures 100% destruction of the eggs and hatched lice after a single treatment. However, there are a number of treatment modalities that can be employed with varying degrees of success. These methods include chemical treatments, natural products, combs, shaving, hot air, and silicone-based lotions.
Hippoboscidae, the louse flies or keds, are obligate parasites of mammals and birds. In this family, the winged species can fly at least reasonably well, though others with vestigial or no wings are flightless and highly apomorphic. As usual in their superfamily Hippoboscoidea, most of the larval development takes place within the mother's body, and pupation occurs almost immediately.
Relapsing fever is a vector-borne disease caused by infection with certain bacteria in the genus Borrelia, which is transmitted through the bites of lice, soft-bodied ticks, or hard-bodied ticks.
The body louse or the cootie is a hematophagic ectoparasite louse that infests humans. It is one of three lice which infest humans, the other two being the head louse, and the crab louse or pubic louse.
Forensic entomology has three sub-fields: urban, stored product and medico-criminal entomologies. This article focuses on medico-criminal entomology and how DNA is analyzed with various blood-feeding insects.
Head lice infestation, also known as pediculosis capitis, is the infection of the head hair and scalp by the head louse. Itching from lice bites is common. During a person's first infection, the itch may not develop for up to six weeks. If a person is infected again, symptoms may begin much more quickly. The itch may cause problems with sleeping. Generally, however, it is not a serious condition. While head lice appear to spread some other diseases in Africa, they do not appear to do so in Europe or North America.
Crataerina is a genus of louse flies in the family Hippoboscidae. All are parasites of birds, feeding on the blood of various species of Apodidae (swifts) and Hirundinidae. The genus is sometimes spelled Craterina.
Human parasites include various protozoa and worms.
Pediculosis corporis or Vagabond's disease is a cutaneous condition caused by body lice that lay their eggs on clothing and to a lesser extent on human hairs.
Pusula pediculus, common name the "coffee bean trivia", is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Triviidae, the false cowries or trivias. This species was previously known as Trivia pediculus.
Pusula is a genus of small sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Triviidae, the false cowries or trivias.
In the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus classified the arthropods, including insects, arachnids and crustaceans, among his class "Insecta". Wingless arthropods were brought together under the name Aptera.
Glossus is a genus of mostly extinct marine bivalve molluscs in the family Glossidae. Only the oxheart clam, G. humanus, is still extant, living in flat, muddy regions deep off the North Atlantic coastline of Europe.
Argulus foliaceus, also known as the common fish louse, is a species of fish lice in the family Argulidae. It is "the most common and widespread native argulid in the Palaearctic" and "one of the most widespread crustacean ectoparasites of freshwater fish in the world", considering its distribution and range of hosts. It can cause the severe disease state argulosis in a wide variety of fish species. It is responsible for epizootic outbreaks that have led to the collapse of aquaculture operations. Fish lice are not related to lice, which are insects.
