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- Lice and Nits
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- Lice on eyelashes
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- Types of Lice
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- Linen lice
Lice eat blood, cause itching, headaches, insomnia in humans. Nits spoil hair. Some believe that you can pick up the parasite from animals, especially from street cats and dogs. To verify the opposite, it is worthwhile to figure out how many lice live outside the person’s head, where they come from, how lice develop and whether lice live on clothes.
What lice and nits look like
The appearance of insects cannot be called attractive. Parasites are light yellow, light brown in color. Length does not exceed 3 mm. They get their food with the help of a sting and suction cups. On the skin, 6 legs are holding it.
Lice nits are similar to dandruff flakes. It can only live on a hairline, to which it is attached with an adhesive substance. Removing eggs from hair is not easy. This is the main thing difference of nits from dandruff.
Interesting!
Usually flightless pests, which include lice, can jump high. But this parasite is deprived of this ability.
The development of lice has several stages:
- egg,
- first nymph
- second nymph
- third nymph
- adult individual.
The larva is similar to an adult, but its color is lighter.
Lice Life Cycle
Lice live on the hair of the face and body. Can live:
- in the hair;
- on the eyelashes;
Lice on eyelashes - on the pubis;
- in the armpits.
The individuals living on the head differ from the pubic. The latter have more powerful legs and jaws, more often suck blood. They cannot live without constant food.
The female lays up to 150 eggs in her life, which attach to the human hair at a certain distance from the skin. Under favorable conditions, after 5 days, the nit turns into a nymph.
The larva must receive food in the first hour after leaving the egg, otherwise it will not be able to survive. After the first portion of blood, molting occurs, and the pest changes shape. But he will become an adult when he changes his chitin cover two more times.
After the third molt, the adult stage begins. After a few hours, the adult male is ready for breeding, and the female makes her first laying on the hair of a person.
On a note!
Many are looking for information on how much nits live. But this question is incorrect. Only a parasite egg is called a nit, from which a larva appears after 5–9 days.
The life cycle lasts about a month. The female lays eggs after each feeding. In head lice, it occurs 4 times a day. Pubic meals are eaten every four hours.
Where and how many lice live
Pests have a "narrow specialization." The structure of their body is such that they cannot settle on another mammal and are not adapted to live on wool. Everyone is accustomed to believing that a parasite can live only on the human body, but few people think about where lice live except for the head.
The insect is divided into three types, depending on the place of life:
- Cootie. She is attracted to the human smell, she is not able to live on the body. The parasite lives in folds of clothes, bedding.
- Pubic Louse. Can live where hard hair grows - eyelashes, mustache, pubic hair, armpits.
- Head lice and nits. They live only on the head of a person.
Those who are faced with a disease such as pediculosis, begin to wonder how many lice live without food. Each species is different in this respect from each other:
- Headache dies after 2 days without human blood.Nits will go through their life cycle completely, but the hatched larva, not finding food, can only live an hour.
- Pubic view will not last more than four hours. The egg will develop until the time comes to hatch the nymph, which will die immediately.
The human body is not suitable for permanent living. The question then becomes whether lice can live in pillows and blankets. This type of insect is able to choose bedding attributes, but only if it has access to a power source. Whatever kind of head lice are, they do not live without a person.
Interesting!
The pest likes to stay warm. Temperature conditions for lice is important. If the temperature drops to + 10 ° C and lower, it hibernates, and the nits slow their development. Lice die at temperatures above + 45 ° C and below 0 ° C.
The most common questions about lice life
People care about the same questions regarding the life of these insects. Here are the most common ones:
- How many lice live on a person’s head - usually they die a month after their appearance. If a living parasite is left without a person at room temperature, he must find another victim within a day. If the temperature is low, the pest hibernates.
- Whether lice live in bedding - this can happen to an unscrupulous person. The clothes look prefers to live in folds of clothing adjacent to the body, but the insect can move to the bed and bed. No wonder the parasite in everyday life is called louse louse. If you change the bed, it will not stay there.
Linen lice - Can lice live on the couch - the answer to this question will not differ from the previous one. Furniture is not the place where an insect builds a "house." He needs a constant power source.
If at least one louse has been noticed on the head, you should carefully check the hair and do the treatment. The parasite is small and difficult to detect. Having found a mate, one individual will quickly breed.
Although insects are not characterized by a long life cycle, they cause many problems to humans. Because of them, you have to limit yourself in communication and endure a lot of inconvenience. Fortunately, get rid of lice simple enough. To do this, use pharmacy pediculicidal drugs or folk remedies.
I thought that now only homeless people have problems with lice, and here the granddaughter brought “guests” to us from the kindergarten. It turned out that pediculosis is a common disease, and many children suffer from it. Fortunately, there are enough parasitic drugs in the pharmacy.
I wash my hair every day, take care of headgear, and suddenly my head began to itch. It turned out that he picked up lice. I didn’t even think that fitting caps on the market would turn into such a problem.
My mother, when she goes to church, can not take a scarf with her, but take advantage of the one in the temple. He doesn’t believe lice are transmitted that way. I will show her your comment. Suddenly he will understand.
I always thought that lice to people come from animals. But it turns out that they only live on man. Now I know.
My work is such that I constantly get in touch with people. I'm afraid of pediculosis, like fire. So I did a short haircut. I heard that lice do not live on short hair.
Katya, a short haircut will not help. The louse is small and feeds on blood. Her hair length is not important. My daughter picked up this infection, although her hair is like that of a boy.
I did not know that this muck also lives in clothes. I thought that only on the head can be found. Now I’ll carefully monitor the wardrobe and will not measure the thing until I examine it.
I constantly check my son’s head. Someone in his class found lice a month ago. It seems that no one is sick, but it is better to be careful.
My daughter had hair before the priests.From birth, her braid was raised. I had to cut off all the beauty because of lice. Because, than they didn’t process it, but insects appeared again.
Nadezhda Anatolyevna, now funds for every taste. I didn’t cut my braid to my princess. They did it. Maybe you just bought a bad drug or used it according to instructions.