Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
The sucking lice, of the order Anoplura, are external parasites of humans and other mammals, feeding on blood by means of their piercing-and-sucking mouthparts. The group includes the body lice and head lice, considered varieties of the same species, Pediculus humanus, and the crab, or pubic, louse, Phthirus pubis, named for its crablike appearance. A female sucking louse lays about 300 eggs, or nits, in her lifetime, cementing them to body hairs and underclothing. The larva resembles the adult; the life cycle takes about 16 days. Sucking lice infestations are common in crowded living conditions and where clothing is not changed or washed frequently. Body lice may transmit rickettsial diseases (see rickettsia) and bacterial infections such as relapsing fever; infection results from scratching the crushed louse or its feces into the skin.
The chewing, or biting, lice, of the order Mallophaga, have chewing mouthparts and feed on hair, skin, or feather fragments of the host. They attack birds, rodents, and domesticated animals. Although they do not actually puncture the skin, and thus are scavengers and not true parasites, they often multiply so rapidly that they irritate, weaken, and may even kill the host. The chicken louse, Menopon pallidum, if left uncontrolled, can be a major problem in poultry production. Chewing lice may produce 6 to 12 generations annually. The eggs hatch into rapidly developing young in which metamorphosis is incomplete, as in many parasites.
The book louse is a tiny, wingless, cosmopolitan insect that damages books by feeding on glue, paste, and paper. It resembles lice but is not related, belonging to the order Psocoptera. The aphid is sometimes called plant louse.
Lice are classified in the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, orders Anoplura and Mallophaga.
See bulletins of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
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Any of more than 400 species (suborder Anoplura, order Phthiraptera) of small, wingless, flat ectoparasitic insects found worldwide. They have piercing and sucking mouthparts for extracting their food of mammals' blood and tissue fluids. The nymphs mature after several molts. Species are host-specific: Pediculus infests humans (see human louse), whereas other sucking lice (genera Haematopinus and Linognathus) attack domestic animals, such as hogs, cattle, horses, and dogs.
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Any of several species of sapsucking, soft-bodied insects (order Homoptera) that are about the size of a pinhead, with tubelike projections on the abdomen. Serious plant pests, they stunt plant growth, produce plant galls, transmit plant viral diseases, and deform leaves, buds, and flowers. Ants may take care of aphids, protecting them from weather and natural enemies and transferring them from wilted to healthy plants. The ants in turn obtain honeydew, a sweet product excreted by aphids, which the ants retrieve by “milking” the aphids (stroking their abdomens).
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Any of some 3,300 species of small, wingless, parasitic insects of the order Phthiraptera. The order consists mainly of biting, or chewing, lice (parasites of birds and mammals) and sucking lice (see sucking louse). The louse's body is flattened. The eggs, or nits, are cemented to the hair or plumage of the host, and most species spend their entire lives on the bodies of host animals. Heavy infestations cause much irritation and may lead to secondary infections. In moving from host to host, lice may spread many diseases, including tapeworm infestation in dogs and murine typhus in rats.
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