Blood-sucking lice of humans have extensively fragmented mitochondrial (mt) genomes. Human head louse and body louse have their 37 mt genes on 20 minichromosomes. In human pubic louse, the 34 mt genes known are on 14 minichromosomes. To understand the process of mt genome fragmentation in the blood-sucking lice of mammals, we sequenced the mt genomes of the domestic pig louse, Haematopinus suis...

BACKGROUND Head lice infestation affects mainly school-aged children and prevalence varies from region to region. Head lice infestation is of public health concern and screening is integrated into the School Health Programme. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of head lice infestation in primary school-aged children in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. DESIGN Cross-sectional descriptive study. S...

Head lice infestation contributes a significant morbidity among schoolchildren in Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was designed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of head lice infestation among primary schoolchildren in Kelantan, Malaysia. Six schools were randomly selected from three sub-districts of Kuala Krai, Kelantan. A total of 463 eleven-year-old pupils were screened by ...

The purpose of this field study was to develop and evaluate eradication as a strategy to control lice in cattle. Thirty-three herds of cattle were selected and observed during a period of two and a half years. Before eradication, biting lice (Damalinia bovis) were present in 94% of the herds and 27% of the animals. Sucking lice (Linognathus vituli) were present in 42% of the herds and 5% of the...

Many host-specific parasites are restricted to a limited range of host species by ecological barriers that impede dispersal and successful establishment. In some cases, microevolutionary differentiation is apparent on top of host specificity, as evidenced by significant parasite population genetic structure among host populations. Ecological barriers responsible for specificity and genetic stru...

Bartonella quintana is a bacterium that causes trench fever in humans. Past reports have shown Bartonella spp. infections in homeless populations in San Francisco, California, USA. The California Department of Public Health in collaboration with San Francisco Project Homeless Connect initiated a program in 2007 to collect lice from the homeless to test for B. quintana and to educate the homeles...

Hematophagus arthropod bloodmeals may be useful in identifying individual hosts. To examine the application of human lice as a forensic tool, that is, as evidence of physical contact between individuals, body lice from a laboratory colony and head lice, collected from the head of infested children, were studied. The DNA profile of an individual was detectable in the pooled bloodmeals of two bod...

BACKGROUND Pathogens are growing threats to wildlife. The rapid growth of marine salmon farms over the past two decades has increased host abundance for pathogenic sea lice in coastal waters, and wild juvenile salmon swimming past farms are frequently infected with lice. Here we report the first investigation of the potential role of salmon farms in transmitting sea lice to juvenile sockeye sal...

Behavior is usually the first line of defense against parasites. Antiparasite behaviors, such as grooming, or outright avoidance, have been shown to reduce the risk of parasitism in a wide variety of host–parasite systems. However, despite the central importance of antiparasite behavior, little is known about the extent to which prior exposure to parasites improves effectiveness. Here, we repor...