Lice Life Cycle

Introduction:

Everyone goes through an itchy, blood-sucking and skull scratching episode of lice in their hair. It’s prominent in the human scalp as it gets body heat from that area. Lice fall under the order Phthiraptera that includes chewing louse (Amblycera) and sucking louse (Anoplura). Chewing louse resides on birds and some other mammals like cattle. Sucking louse resides on humans with improper hygiene conditions. Sucking louse is known as Pediculus humanus that infests the human head. Louse measures up to 11 mm in length and varies in colours like white, brown, yellow or black.

Let’s look at the life cycle of lice:

1) The Egg – Stage 1 –

Lice eggs are also known as nits, they are very tiny particles that are found on the human scalp. Due to its size, it can be mistaken for dandruff or other dirt particles on the scalp. It measures up to 0.8 mm, oval-shaped and yellow or white coloured. These eggs take around one week to hatch into nymphs.

2) The Nymph – Stage 2 –

The nymphs are tinier versions of lice. Initially, the nymph is yellow to white coloured but undergoes three stages of moulting. With each stage of moulting the nymph transforms to the adult lice. This nymph takes a week to enter the adult stage.

3) The Adult – Stage 3 –

The adult lice have fully-grown and measure up to 2 mm in length. Almost similar to the size of a sesame seed, the adult lice live up to 30 days if fed frequent blood meals on a daily basis. The adult lice will die in one or two days if it’s off the host.

Conclusion:

Lice have six claws that they use to crawl up and down the hair and catch hold of hair as well. They are wingless, blood-sucking insects that cause an infestation and can pass on from one head to the other. Due to an increase in the lice infestation, several insecticidal shampoos have been introduced to fight lice. But unfortunately, this ascends in insecticidal shampoos made lice resilient to insecticides. The only way out of this infestation is to maintain proper hygiene habits.