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Of lice and men: An itchy history

 

By Emily Willingham

 

Ponder the louse. Consider its plural, lice. Try now not to scratch the multiple itches that have just populated your head at the very thought of these near-microscopic insects crawling around in that forest of hair follicles, laying eggs, sucking blood, and generally creeping you out.

 

The thing is, your head may not be the likeliest place to feel the itch. After all, we’re home not only to the louse, but to lice, plural. As in two genera of lice, and three different kinds. One of those, the pubic louse, appears to trace back to contact between the Homo lineage and the gorilla, but more on that in a bit.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=of-lice-and-men-an-itchy-history-2011-02-14&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_EVO_20110214

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