The Life Cycle of Lice
If you see someone with tiny, water drop-like things on the strands of their hair, chances are, they have head lice or nits (as they are called during that stage in their life cycle). It’s a highly contagious medical disease that occurs primarily on children between the age of 4 and 13 (although some adults can have it, too, through contact with an infected person). You really need to know as much as possible about the lice life cycle to effectively treat them.
Head lice are tiny wingless parasites (mostly 1 to 3 millimeters in length) that attach themselves on the scalp and feeds on blood. They commonly occur in chimpanzees and humans. However, there are also other species known to infest birds and particular mammals.
Because they have no wings, these insects can neither jump nor fly. The shape of their legs does not allow them to properly walk on level surfaces, either. However, because they are relatively lightweight, they are known to be swept up by the wind.
Male lice are a little bit bigger than female lice, with longer fore legs used to hold mates in place during intercourse.
Like birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, lice are oviparous insects. As such, they lay louse eggs, which are called nits. These are possibly fertile eggs from which louse nymphs hatch. Each nit has a cap on top of it, and a hair shaft that firmly attaches it to its host.
There are 3 stages of nymph development. This means that a new nymph would molt thrice before adulthood (technically called three “nymphal instars”). An instar refers to an arthropod’s developmental stage. The time between being a nymph to becoming an adult or an imago is highly dependent on the conditions to which it finds itself in. For as long as it has a ready source of blood from its host, it can take 9 days for a nymph to morph into a full fledged imago.
Lice can live as long as four weeks or a month, during which period the female will have laid between 50 and 150 nits. Not all of these nits will bear fruit. Some will actually be infertile. However, for those that do survive, they can multiply exponentially and travel from one head to another through close contact. It takes a week or so for nits to hatch.
Lice feed on blood around 4 to 5 times each day. They pierce the skin with a retractable mouth part, and inject it with saliva to ensure a smoother flow of blood while feeding (during which time it also excretes dark red biological waste into the skin). Apparently, their saliva contains chemicals that prevent blood from clotting.
As a general rule, lice hate the light and bury themselves deep into the darker parts of its host’s body or hair. Apart from the scalp, lice like the back part of the ears and the nape of the neck.
If someone in your household is infected, immediately quarantine and treat it. Do not share pillows or let your heads touch as this is one way for lice to hop from one host to another.
