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Human lice haven't split into two distinct species; the "human" lice - the ones that have been with us for as long as we've been around - are now head lice, and

Human lice haven't split into two distinct species; the "human" lice - the ones that have been with us for as long as we've been around - are now head lice, and we picked up pubic lice from gorillas after we "lost" most of our body hair. (It's still there, of course, but not in a way that's useful to lice.)

jermaustin1 9y ago
Is there more on this? It sounds both interesting and gross, an intersection of two interested.
- detaro 9y ago
  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070316-gorilla-lice_2.html https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070316-gori... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_louse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_louse
saalweachter 9y ago
> we picked up pubic lice from gorillas after we "lost" most of our body hair Can we, uhh, not mention this to any alien species we may encounter in the future?
- bdamm 9y ago
  We should present it early in hopes that they never go out of quarantine.
gumby 9y ago
Thank you, I had it mostly wrong. A quick whip through the Wikipedia claims that the pubic louse is indeed a descendent of a gorilla louse, though now utterly speciated from it and human-exclusive. Human head and body lice have indeed diverged, but are not completely speciated and can, in the lab, still interbreed. The term in the Wikipedia was "subspecies"; as I'm not a zoologist I'm not sure if it's a formal term or not. But my claim head/pubis claim was wrong. That's my TIL for today!