Head Lice Infestation -- Hard To Eliminate

Head lice have plagued the human race since time began, it doesn't matter where humans live, or what they do in life, a head louse will never be far behind.

Head lice love nothing more than nestling into human hair, laying their eggs near the scalp and sucking on the blood from the skin of the human head. After all if a head louse falls off a human host it will die within 48 hours, normally sooner, a head louse cannot live without human hair.

It is surprising to think that these insects, which can only live on a human's hair, are able to survive. You have to think that these little insects have had to follow the evolution of man very closely otherwise they risked extinction.

What does the head louse look like?

The head louse is no bigger than the size of a sesame seed when fully grown and looks very much like a really small ant, with an extra long abdomen. The louse has six legs, with the front two being much longer than the others as they have been designed through evolution to grasp the human hair so the head louse does not lose its grip.

How does infestation occur?

To understand infestation it is important for us to first understand that the head louse cannot jump or fly, this means that head lice can only travel from human to human contact, and this is mainly from head to head contact.

The problem with infestation is that it only takes one female head louse to cause a huge infestation, this is because one female head louse can lay hundreds of eggs in her lifetime and each egg takes only seven days to hatch.

Once hatched the nymphs, which new born head lice are called, takes only 12 days before it is ready to start laying eggs itself.

This means in the space of a month the colony of one head louse can rise to two hundred or three hundred head lice.

Can you stop infestation from occurring?

One major problem with stopping an infestation of head lice is that to stop the colonies life cycle you must exterminate all of the head lice, nymphs and eggs that have not hatched. If one egg or louse can survive it can mean the infestation will manifest itself again.

Another issue is that head lice are strong and adaptable from their many years on this planet. At present the main types of treatment are insecticide shampoos, but these do not always work as the head lice can adapt and become immune to these treatments so they do not kill them.

The head louse will never become extinct, as the human population grows, so will the head louse population. It doesn't matter what treatment we find, they will always find a way round this.

Head lice have proven themselves to be very adaptable over the last million years and this will carry on through evolution for another million years to come.