Head lice – a life of hair

Head lice live in the hair on a human head, they cannot live anywhere else, they only live up to 48 hours if they are taken away from their natural habitat, the human head. The head louse is strong and hard to stop when living in its natural habitat, but take it away from where it likes to live and it is vulnerable.

Head lice start out life in an egg that is white in color and no bigger than a grain of sand, this egg takes roughly seven to nine days to hatch. When the egg hatches, out tumbles an almost see through baby head louse, called a nymph. The nymph will change to a brownish, red color once it has taken its first meal.

The nymph spends the first twelve days of its life feeding on the host’s blood, growing and going through the metamorphoses process on numerous occasions. The nymph sheds its exoskeleton three times during these 12 days; the reason for this is the growth that it is going through. During the nymph period the nymph is asexual and does not have a sex.

After twelve days have passed the young nymph becomes an adult, finds out its sex and can then be called a head louse, it is at this point that the new adult can start to infest its host further by laying and fertilizing more eggs.

The female louse, the bigger out of the two sexes, will spend most of her days feeding, laying eggs and spreading saliva over the eggs to glue them in place. On a good day she may be able to lay six or seven eggs, with a bad day only producing three or four. Overall the female louse can lay a couple of hundred eggs in her short but busy lifetime.

For almost thirty days the female louse will carry on this process of eating and laying eggs, then she will pass on and the cycle of life will continue with her offspring carrying on the process.

Sometimes the head louse may find its way onto another host where there is less, if any, head lice so they can stretch their legs and take control of the new terrain, building a successful colony so they have a lasting legacy, days or even weeks after they have gone.

The whole life of a head louse is fifty days; in this time they manage so much in their little world, without even realizing it.

Because of the habitat the head lice live in, they have to endure a lot of bad conditions, it is amazing how they survive without getting squashed while their host sleeps or getting washed away during a shower when the host rubs shampoo in the hair then rinses it out.

Head lice may be an unwanted infestation but you also have to give credit to the little insects for having the strength and endurance to survive in a harsh environment where many would simply give up.