Pediculosis: how to get rid of lice on clothes and bedding? Where do lice live and what do they eat? Do lice live in water.

Parents whose children have been diagnosed with head lice often look for information on how long nits live. But such a question is not correct, since nits are not an independent living insect, they are lice eggs in special shells. They don't need food. Without a person and under normal conditions, they retain their viability for a long time.

Evolution took care of the structural features of this insect. It is perfectly adapted to life in almost any conditions. The structure of the body and the characteristic features of the stylets at the ends of the paws - everything suggests that the louse should live on the human body.

There are varieties that can settle down and feed on other parts of the human body. For example, the clothes type can even live on clothes and move to the body when the clothes were put on. The same pubic louse lives only in the armpits or in the pubic hair.

Infection of the head with pubic lice is possible only in children.

Stages of development of lice

Nits develop in 7 to 10 days. Body lice eggs can take up to 2 months to develop, provided the nits develop when room temperature. At low temperatures, development can be delayed up to a year.

When temperatures drop to -1°C or colder, nits can only live for one week. As for the development of the nymph, or larva, the process also proceeds faster - under favorable conditions in 15-20 days. Adult lice live for 40-46 days. The lifespan of insects living on garments is about 40 days.

Despite the fact that the life of a louse is fleeting, it manages to go through several stages. An insect has only 3 molts. They begin every time when the chitinous “clothes” for the nymph becomes small. When the third molt ends, the nymph becomes an adult insect. The female can lay 2-4 eggs per day. During its short life, the louse manages to lay 140 eggs.

Despite the fact that body lice and head lice have a different structure, their individuals, placed in a limited space, begin to interbreed with each other. After a few generations, the differences disappear.

When the larva hatches from the egg, the insect can pierce the lid of the nit with its jaws, but is not able to get out of it on its own. The larva begins to breathe actively. In this case, the air passes through digestive system insect and exits through the anus. When air accumulates at the bottom of the nit in large quantities, it pushes the larva out of the cap, which enters the skin of the hairline and begins to suck blood.

How to get rid of lice?

Knowing that lice do not live outside the head for so long, you need to find effective way getting rid of them. These harmless creatures, among other things, are carriers of such dangerous diseases like typhoid.

Learn more about pediculosis characteristics. The person suffers from itching. He has bluish marks on his skin. A person's health and mood worsens, sleep is disturbed. If during the inspection they were found uninvited guests you need to go to the pharmacy. Tell us about the problem, and the pharmacist will advise you on the best remedy.

This must be done, since lice live without a person for several days, and if suddenly a fallen individual “decides” to return, preventive measures will turn out to be necessary.

Sometimes you can apply radical way- shave baldly. Combing is used much more often. The method works well in combination with the use medicines. Special combs quickly free hair from nits and lice. They are not difficult to use. Treat the head with the tool.

The head louse is brown in color, the insects living on clothes are white.

However, if you arm yourself with a magnifying glass, you can see how it really looks. She has all the body parts characteristic of other insects: cephalothorax, abdomen, antennae and six legs. The louse living on a person’s head is gray or brown in color, but body lice, which have chosen folds of clothing as their habitat, are painted white.

They don't have wings, so they can't fly. They are not even able to jump, but they quickly run through the hair. Therefore, children are most often infected with insects, since during games they often come into close contact with each other.

If nits lead a passive life, then the translucent lice larvae hatched from them are no less active than their parents.

Yes, and they cause as much anxiety to their carrier, since they feed on human blood.

The mouth apparatus of lice and insect larvae is perfect tool so that they can pierce the skin of a person, and then drink blood from it.

How long can a louse live without a human

A louse can get on the human body in a variety of ways. It can be transport, school, hospital.

A louse can also jump on a person from objects surrounding him.

It can be clothes, bedding, combs. As soon as the louse has got on the human body, it clings tightly to the hair and begins to multiply, laying eggs.

Lice and nits are very firmly attached to the hair.

How long does a louse live outside of a person? There is an exact answer to this question. She cannot live without food. If within two days the insect does not find food for itself (that is, it does not settle on a person), it will die.

It doesn't take long for an egg to grow into an adult. On average, this will take approximately 15 days. However, if the conditions for reproduction are not too favorable, then this process can take up to a month.

The louse passes full cycle development in 15 days

The development of an insect is divided into the following stages:

1. At one time, an adult female lays up to five eggs, which she firmly fixes on her hair. She chooses a place for this purpose as close as possible to the scalp, gluing the eggs with a sticky substance present in the outer shell of the egg. It takes five to eight days for a nit to develop into a larva.
2. The emerging larva appearance resembles a small louse, but her reproductive system is still in an underdeveloped state. After the first meal, she molts. From this point on, the larva is called a nymph. The first stage of its development lasts about five days. Since the nymph molts three times, it has three stages of development. Molting occurs because her shell is made of chitin, so he cannot grow with her. Have to change it.
3. After passing through all stages of development, the hatched larva becomes an adult. This stage is called imago. The female immediately finds a mate and starts laying eggs on the same day. Sometimes this happens literally after a few hours. For more information on how louse appears, see this video:

Places where a louse lives on a person

Obviously, the insect clings to the hair very tightly, but this is only because it can fall during hygiene procedures. However, hair is not their only habitat. It is in the place where lice live on a person that they are divided into three types:

• underwear;
• pubic;
• head.

However, you should be aware that before using them, you should carefully study the instructions, since there are many contraindications for their use.

Such drugs should not be used by pregnant women, in the presence of asthma and allergies. They can poison small children.

Means made from wild rosemary, hellebore, tansy are safe for children

• decoction or juice of wild rosemary and hellebore;
• decoction of tansy;
• vegetable oil;
• cranberry juice;
• hair spray.

To avoid infestation with lice, you should observe simple rules hygiene, the main of which is not to use the personal belongings of strangers. Combs, hairpins, towels used by other people can become sources of infection with head lice. Hats belonging to strangers may not be worn. All family members should systematically check themselves to make sure they do not have head lice.

Lice are arthropod insects that belong to the subclass winged insects, infraclass new-winged insects, order lice and lice, suborder lice (lat. Anoplura).

International scientific name: Anoplura(Leach, 1815).

The origin of the word "louse" is not clearly defined. On Slavic languages these insects are called very similarly: in Ukrainian - louse, in Bulgarian - vashka, in Serbian vashka, in Croatian and Slovenian uš, in Czech veš, in Slovak vši, in Polish wesz. At the heart of all these names, as well as the ancient Russian vsh, is the Proto-Slavic * vъšь. Perhaps the origin of the ancient Indian "vas", which means "to eat", that is, a louse is what eats.

Lice - description, characteristics, photos. What do lice look like?

A louse is an insect that has a small size and a flattened body, compressed from the back to the abdomen. The narrow or wide oval body reaches 0.5-6.5 mm in length and 0.2-2.5 mm in width. Males are usually smaller than females.

The body of a louse consists of sedentary sections: the head, the chest and abdomen separated from it. The head may have different shape: narrow oval, hexagonal, narrowed in front of the moustache, sometimes very elongated. It is located prognathically, that is, directly in relation to the body.

Several parts are distinguished on the head, separated from each other by sutures: the upper lip, clypeus, forehead, nape and crown, sometimes divided by a suture into right and left parts, called ophthalmic lobes. On the sides of the anterior, and more often the middle part of the head, filiform antennae grow, consisting of 3-5 segments. The last two segments have sensory fossae. Sensitive appendages are located on the terminal segment. In males, the third antennal segment sometimes has a protrusion (appendage) bearing a spine or seta, and the first segment is noticeably larger than in females.

Behind the antennae, that is, on the sides of the back of the head, are single-lens reduced eyes: hemispherical or cone-shaped, with or without a pigment spot. Many varieties of lice are considered eyeless. Vision in lice is very poor: insects perceive only light and navigate with the help of antennae that capture odors.

On the ventral side, lice have a mouth opening located on an annular fold that recedes from the anterior edge of the head. It is a short oral cone with small chitinous hooks. It is with them that the louse is attached to the skin of the host in order to suck blood. The oral apparatus of the piercing-sucking type of lice is located in a special capsule located inside the head. It is drawn into the capsule when the insect is not drinking blood, and is pushed out by the corresponding muscles during the meal. The oral apparatus consists of upper, middle and lower stylets.

• The first stylet has the shape of a double gutter and, together with the passage formed by the gutter-like outgrowths of the oral cavity, serves to pass blood into the pharynx, which works with the help of special muscles as a suction-discharge pump.
• The second stylet is a salivary tube into which the common duct of the salivary glands passes.
• The third stylet is prickly. It consists of a serrated top and a groove where the first two stylets lie.

oral apparatus

The chest of lice consists of three closely fused parts: prothorax, mesothorax, and metathorax. In size, it can be shorter than the head, and its shape varies from elongated oval to hexagonal. It has a pair of mesothoracic spiracles (stigmas) and legs: they are not equally developed and sometimes differ in males and females.

Despite the fact that lice belong to the subclass of winged insects, they lack even the rudiments of wings. Lice do not know how to fly: like, they have lost their wings in the course of evolution.

The legs of the lice are five-segmented, grasping type, very tenacious and strong. They consist of a coxa (or coxae), a trochanter, a femur, a tibia, and a tarsus with 1 or 2 segments. The front legs are smaller than the middle or hind legs. Last segments, tibia and tarsus, often fused or indistinctly separated. The extended tibia has spines, setae, and protrusions. The tarsus has a smooth or furrowed sickle-shaped claw of various lengths, sometimes with a claw-like appendage. With the help of all these devices, the louse clings very firmly to the host's hair and climbs over it. During movement, the insect grabs a hair with a claw, pressing it to the lower leg. By the way, there is a notch on the lower leg, where the claw is bent.

Enemies of lice in nature

The natural enemies of lice are, as well as some predatory and insects.

What do lice eat?

All lice feed on the blood of their hosts. The larva begins to eat within 20-30 minutes after its appearance. At the same time, the insects keep their heads under obtuse angle to your body. The saliva secreted by the insect enters the wound of the host, and prevents blood from clotting. Active peristalsis occurs in the insect's stomach: it fills with blood, and after 12-17 minutes excrement is already excreted, which looks like a reddish liquid and hardens after another 3-5 minutes.

The feeding frequency of lice for full saturation varies by different types and depends on some external factors e.g. on temperature. The higher the temperature, the more often the insects suck blood. Some types of lice eat almost continuously, being distracted only by movement and reproduction, other species take breaks. Usually insects feed on the blood of one species of animal, but if necessary, they can change their host for a while.

Where do lice live?

Lice are found on many animals, including domestic ones, belonging to various orders: on, shrews, dormouse, mice, various types, including house mice, voles, aardvarks, hyraxes, buffaloes, donkeys, seals, and so on. One of the mammals affected by lice is man.

At the same time, there is whole line animals that have never found insects from the suborder of lice (lat. Anoplura) (Piotrowski, F. (1992): Anoplura(echte Lause). de Gruiter; 61 p. (page 8)):

1. Detachment single pass (lat. Monotremata) (animals such as echidnas, platypuses),
2. Detachment edentulous (lat. Pilosa) (these are various sloths and anteaters),
3. A detachment of pangolins, or lizards (lat. Pholidota) (it includes various pangolins),
4. Order bats (lat. Chiroptera) (these are fruit bats and bats),
5. Detachment cetaceans (lat. Cetacea) (these are whales, dolphins, sperm whales, porpoises),
6. Siren Squad (lat. Sirenia) (these are dugongs, manatees and sea cows),
7. Proboscis squad (lat. Proboscidea) (these are elephants). Previously, elephant lice were assigned to the suborder Anoplura, but then they were taken to a separate suborder.

If the host dies or is feverish (the temperature rises), the lice rise outward, onto the surface of the hairline or clothing, and partially fall off or scatter.

How long do lice live?

The life expectancy of lice, among the studied species, most often is 2-4 weeks, the maximum is about 2 months. The life span of males is much shorter than that of females.

Without food (without a person or animal), lice do not live long: from 1 to 7 days (according to some sources, up to 10 days). The higher the air temperature and dryness, the shorter the lifespan. The newly hatched larvae, without a host, die after a shorter period: from 12 hours to 4 days.

How do lice reproduce?

The life cycle of lice is as follows:

Life cycle

Lice reproduce by laying eggs. A sexually mature female lays eggs regardless of mating, but unfertilized eggs do not develop. The female can mate soon after her appearance. Mating occurs within 10-70 minutes. The male is under the female and holds her either only with the first or both the first and second pairs of legs.

Each female lays 4 to 14 eggs, depending on the species. In total, she lays an average of up to 329 eggs. Eggs are especially visible on sparse-haired animals, on clothes, and then it seems that the whole surface is strewn with them.

Lice eggs are called nits. They are covered with a hard shell, have an oval, pear-shaped or one-sided flattened shape and on average reach 0.5-1.5 mm in length and 0.2-0.7 mm in width. The color of the nits is white, yellowish, rarely with a slight pearly sheen.

Eggs (nits). Taken from: www.nhs.uk

The front end of the egg is a lid that opens when the larva is born.

At the lower end there is a glue mass (a special glue secret), with which it is attached to the owner's hair.

The structure of the nit: A - cap, B - shell, C - hair, D - hatching of the larva

The larva that emerged from the egg (it is also a nymph) is similar to an adult insect and differs only in its smaller size, smaller number and arrangement of bristles, as well as the absence of genital organs. During its development, the louse larva molts three times, while maintaining a whitish, almost transparent body color. In the process of growing up, the size increases, pigmentation and sclerotization increase, the number of setae increases, and the genitals appear.

Larval stages in lice last 2-3 days. The larvae are ready to suck blood 20-45 minutes after hatching, and puberty occurs in 1-7 days. Full life cycle different types of lice lasts up to one and a half months, depending on external conditions.

Taken from: www.std-gov.org

Types of lice, names and photos

Below is short description several varieties of lice, which differ from each other in appearance, the choice of the host and the places of distribution on his body.

The insect has a size of 1 mm in length (in males) and 1.6-2 mm (in females). The body is short and wide. The legs are directed to the sides. The head appears to have been cut off at the front. The chest is the widest part of the body, convex from the sides, with dark pigmentation. The abdomen is short. The female lays no more than 3-4 eggs per day. The complete life cycle varies from 22 to 27 days. Under normal conditions, the life span of the female reaches 17 days, the male - 22.

Pubic lice are inactive, long time are in one place, plunging the proboscis into the body of the owner. Eat with frequent breaks. They survive 1-2 days without food. They do not carry infections. Geographically distributed throughout the world.

The female lays 1-2 eggs 3 days after the last larval molt. It can lay up to 50 eggs in a lifetime. The life expectancy of the female is 3-4 weeks, the male is 2 weeks.

Pig burnet lives all over the world. On the body of a pig, it is located locally in areas with delicate skin: on the ears, shoulder blades, inner thighs. On young piglets, it is located throughout the body. This type of lice is a carrier of swine fever and anthrax.

Insects have a narrow, cone-shaped head narrowed in front with a slightly rounded posterior margin. Its width is 2.5 times less than its length. The chest is much shorter than the head, the sides are almost parallel. The abdomen is ovoid and oval. The body length is 3 mm in males and 3.5 mm in females.

Eggs develop within 11-20 days. Larvae mature in 11-12 days. Without a host, this louse can exist for 4-7 days. It is a carrier of equine infectious anemia.

The head of the insect is long: its length exceeds its width. The chest is wider and shorter than the head. Abdomen oval. The antennae are short, attached to the middle part of the head. The body length of the female is 1.8-2.4 mm, the male is 1.6-1.7 mm. Females attach eggs to single hairs or to their group.

• Sheep linognate (lat.Linognathus ovillus ) lives on different parts of the body of a domestic sheep. Females reach 2.8 mm, males - 2.1 mm in length.

The head is elongated with a cone-shaped anterior part. The breast is short, slightly narrower than the head. Abdomen oval.

The insect has a body length of 0.8-1 mm in males and 1-1.4 mm in females. The head is convex in front and cut off at the back. The chest is slightly wider than the head. Abdomen narrowly oval. Legs different sizes. The first pair is shorter, the second is larger, and the third is the largest with a strong thick claw. The insect is localized on the head, neck and shoulder blades of the rodent, less often on the sides and hips. In the same places, females lay their eggs.

The lifespan of a louse without a human depends on how long it can survive without food.

Lifespan adult lice is thirty days. It is during this time that the female lays about ninety eggs. After incubation period(7–10 days) Nits hatch. In the next ten days, it turns into an adult. Then the cycle repeats again.

With regards to nits (lice eggs), in this case the situation is different. Nits, enclosed in a dense shell, can remain alive without a person for 3-4 days and hatch only when favorable conditions for survival appear.

Can lice live in things

Everything has been tried available funds in the fight against lice, and the problem of pediculosis reappears. What's the matter?

Blood-sucking insects are able to live and reproduce not only on human hair - this is a fact.

Lice live in textiles, namely:

• clothes;
• bed linen;
• upholstery of sofas, armchairs;
• pillows (and not always feather ones).

Pediculosis pathogens feed only on human blood. Consequently, their habitat is closely intertwined with human skin.

Linen lice can go without food for a longer time. Therefore, they are most often found:

• on clothes, in particular on underwear;
• on upholstered furniture(particularly vulnerable to soft upholstery sofas and beds)
• on bed linen (pillows, blankets, mattress).

The body louse lives only on clothes. As soon as a person puts on an infected outfit, small blood-sucking insects immediately begin to bite him.

Is it possible to get lice without contact with a person

The problem of pediculosis is quite common, because many people are concerned about the question, is it possible to get lice without contact with a person?

Find out more where lice come from, how you can get them, on our website.

Why do lice appear on the head.

Lice. Causes and treatment.