Zhang Ailing said - "Life is a gorgeous robe covered with lice."
Lice is a general name for a class of insects, including nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. They are obligate parasites that live in the hair or feathers of warm-blooded hosts (birds and mammals).
Humans also have hair and cannot avoid the infestation of lice; while hairless pangolin do not get lice at all.
Chew & Suck
Until the last century, lice were still ubiquitous in human society. Even today, people in some places are still being harassed.
Lice can be roughly divided into two categories in terms of behavior - "chewing" lice, which feed on skin and debris, and "sucking" lice, which pierce the host's skin and feed on blood and other secretions. Both types of lice feed on mammals, but the sucking lice are unique to mammals, in other words, birds never get bitten.
Many lice are specific to a single host species and have co-evolved with it. Moreover, they only live in specific parts of the body and move with the little "world" in which they live.
The behavior of migrating to other animals can be called Colombian great journey in the world of lice.
The Origin of Lice
The first lice to live on mammals likely came from birds, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, compared the genomes and family trees of lice and their mammalian hosts.
Researchers have found genetic evidence - tens of millions of years ago, a host jumping event occurred, which began the co-evolution and continuous connection between mammals and lice.
Hyrax, a member of the order Afrotheria
All major mammal lice groups, including human lice, originated from a common ancestor of the order Afrotheria. The superorder Afrotheria is a group of mammals mainly distributed in Africa, including hyrax, elephants, elephant shrews , etc.
After moving from birds to African mammals, the lice adapted to the new world and, through a host-switching process, went on to colonize other major mammal groups.
What good things did the human ancestors in Africa do?
According to modern views, lice cannot be transferred from birds to mammals.
The new study confirms this: Once bird lice learn how to feed on mammals, they can more easily jump from one mammal species to another, and may have more opportunities to do so.
The next step is-birds spread to animals, animals spread to animals, animals spread to humans, and humans spread to humans.
By the way, according to "The Evolutionary History of Ape Primate Lice" published in 2007: head lice and body lice on humans have a common ancestor with lice on chimpanzees; and pubic lice and gorilla lice We have common ancestors...
Here, what good things did our African ancestors do...
is written at the end
If you are around animals every day in your life, remember to pay attention to cleaning. Maybe one day, the lice on them will think you smell good and move here.
Finally, if you really face a lice infestation - head lice, a comb can remove the worms and eggs, medicinal products, or ordinary shampoo can also control it. At the worst, shave your head to eliminate lice. I won't move here. Same goes for pubic lice.
As for body lice, as Zhang Ailing said at the beginning of the article, they live on clothes. If you wash them well, they may burn them in the fire...
The author thanks you for your attention (¬_¬)
