Week 3 - Insects Living On You, Culture, and Metaphysics Flashcards
Bugs Living On You: Key Points
- Historical Perspective
- Obligate Parasites
- Facultative Parasites
Bugs Living On You: Historical Perspective
Throughout history, bathing for Europeans has been an object of avoidance, limited and outlawed in certain contexts. It carried into the US, where early Americans even had laws limiting the number of baths, or banning them altogether.
Obligate Insect Parasites
Specifically occur on humans
3 types of Obligate Parasites (lice)
1) Head louse
2) Body louse
3) Crab louse
Lice: biological information
- Order Anoplura
- Sucking lice in 15 families/500 species worldwide
- Haemophagic - having piercing/sucking mouthparts
- Wingless with flat bodies
- Hemimetabulous
Lice: 3 “types”, 2 species
Head and body louse are same species (Pediculus humanus. Third type and second species is the crab louse (Pthirus pubis).
Head lice: about
- eggs = “nits”
- adult female lays 50-150 eggs in lifetime
- 3 week “egg to egg”
- have 3 molts to maturity
Head lice: control
- Many chemical treatments available (Nix, Rid, Pronto, Clear)
- Survivors are resulting in resistant strains
- can use olive oil and combing instead
Body louse: about
- lives on clothing
- only on you during feeding
- transmitter of typhus
- diverged from head lice about 42,000-72,000 years ago, which would indicate when humans began to wear clothing, and supports theory of Homo origin in Africa
Body louse: control
- washing clothing and personal hygiene are best ways to control
Crab louse: about
- Lives in pubic area
- Female lays up to 30 eggs
- Often transmitted sexually (considered a STD)
Facultative Insect Parasites
Normally inhabit other animals, but can use humans as hosts
Facultative: Types of fleas
- Cat, dog, and squirrel fleas
Human bot flies
Eggs laid in human skin via mosquitos
Sand fleas: about
- common name: chiggers
- 1 mm length
- Uses human body as nesting site
