Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-72crv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-10T17:01:48.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why infest the loved ones – inherent human behaviour indicates former mutualism with head lice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2012

LAJOS RÓZSA  and
PÉTER APARI
LAJOS RÓZSA*
Affiliation:
MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Group, Budapest, Pazmany Str. 1, H-1117Hungary
PÉTER APARI
Affiliation:
Department of Plant Taxonomy and Ecology, Eotvos University, Budapest, Pazmany Str. 1, H-1117Hungary
*
*Corresponding author: MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Group, Budapest, Pazmany Str. 1, H-1117Hungary. Tel: +36 1306957185. E-mail: lajos.rozsa@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Head lice transmit to new hosts when people lean their heads together. Humans frequently touch their heads to express friendship or love, while this behaviour is absent in apes. We hypothesize that this behaviour was adaptive because it enabled people to acquire head lice infestations as early as possible to provoke an immune response effective against both head lice and body lice throughout the subsequent periods of their life. This cross-immunity could provide some defence against the body-louse-borne lethal diseases like epidemic typhus, trench fever, relapsing fever and the classical plague. Thus the human ‘touching heads’ behaviour probably acts as an inherent and unconscious ‘vaccination’ against body lice to reduce the threat exposed by the pathogens they may transmit. Recently, the eradication of body-louse-borne diseases rendered the transmission of head lice a maladaptive, though still widespread, behaviour in developed societies.

Keywords

head licebody licefacultative mutualismhuman behaviourlouse-borne diseases

Information

Type
Review Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 139 , Issue 6 , May 2012 , pp. 696 - 700
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Anonymous (1330). Anjou Legendarium. Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Vat. Lat. 8541. Vatican City, Italy.Google Scholar
Ben-Yakir, D., Mumcuoglu, K. Y., Manor, O., Ochanda, J. O. and Galun, R. (1994). Immunization of rabbits with a midgut extract of the human body louse Pediculus humanus humanus – the effect of induced resistance on the louse population. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 8, 114–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buxton, P. A. (1946). The Louse; an Account of the Lice which Infest Man, their Medical Importance and Control. Edward Arnold, London, UK.Google Scholar
Canyon, D. V., Speare, R. and Muller, R. (2002). Spatial and kinetic factors for the transfer of Head Lice (Pediculus capitis) between hairs. Journal of Investigative Dermatology 119, 629–631.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwin, C. (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Murray, London, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dionisio, F. (2007). Selfish and spiteful behavior through parasites and pathogens. Evolutionary Ecology Research 9, 1199–1210.Google Scholar
Drancourt, M., Houhamdi, L. and Raoult, D. (2006). Yersinia pestis as a telluric, human ectoparasite-borne organism. Lancet Infectious Diseases 6, 234–241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frankowski, B. L. and Bocchini, J. A. (2010). Clinical report—head lice. Pediatrics 126, 392–403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamilton, W. D. (1963). The evolution of altruistic behavior. American Naturalist 97, 354–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heukelbach, J. (2010). Management and Control of Head Lice Infestations. UNIMEDScience, Bremen, London, and Boston.Google Scholar
Heukelbach, J., Ugbomoiko, U. S., Ande, A. T. and Oliveira, F. A. (2010). Head lice infestation: knowledge, attitudes and practices in rural Nigeria. Türkiye Parazitoloji Dergisi 34 (Suppl. 1), 129.Google Scholar
Heukelbach, J., Wilcke, T., Winter, B. and Feldmeier, H. (2005). Epidemiology and morbidity of scabies and pediculosis capitis in resource-poor communities in Brazil. Epidemiology and Health Services Research 153, 150–156. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2133.2005.06591.x.Google ScholarPubMed
Li, W., Ortiz, G., Fournier, P. E., Gimenez, G., Reed, D. L., Pittendrigh, B. and Raoult, D. (2010). Genotyping of human lice suggests multiple emergences of body lice from local head louse populations. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 4, e641. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000641.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Light, J. E., Toups, M. A. and Reed, D. L. (2008). What's in a name: The taxonomic status of human head and body lice. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 47, 1203–1216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maunder, J. W. (1983). The appreciation of lice. Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 55, 1–31.Google Scholar
McGrew, W. C. (2004). The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Meinking, T. L. (1999). Infestations. Current Problems in Dermatology 11, 73–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mumcuoglu, K. Y., Ben-Yakir, D., Gunzberg, S., Ochanda, J. O. and Galun, R. (1996). Immunogenic proteins in the body and faecal material of the human body louse, Pediculus humanus, and their homology to antigens of other lice species. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 10, 105–107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mumcuoglu, K. Y., Ben-Yakir, D., Ochanda, J. O., Mille, J. and Galun, R. (1997). Immunization of rabbits with faecal extract of Pediculus humanus, the human body louse: effects on louse development and reproduction. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 11, 315–318.Google Scholar
Nishida, T., Zamma, K., Matsusaka, T., Inaba, A. and McGrew, W. C. (2010). Chimpanzee Behaviour in the Wild: an Audio-Visual Encyclopedia. Springer, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
Pollack, R. J. and Kiszewski, A. E. (2010). Exaggerated importance of fomites in the transmission of head lice. Türkiye Parazitoloji Dergisi 34 (Suppl. 1), 124.Google Scholar
Poudel, S. K. and Barker, S. C. (2004). Infestation of people with lice in Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 18, 212–213.Google Scholar
Reed, D. L., Light, J. E., Allen, J. M. and Kirchman, J. J. (2007). Pair of lice lost or parasites regained: the evolutionary history of anthropoid primate lice. BMC Biology 5, 7. doi: 10.1186/1741-7007-5-7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roux, V. and Raoult, D. (1999). Body lice as tools for diagnosis and surveillance of reemerging diseases. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 37, 596–599.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rózsa, L. (2000). Spite, xenophobia, and collaboration between hosts and parasites. Oikos 91, 396–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sparks, J. (1967). Allogrooming in primates: a review. In Primate Ecology (ed. Morris, D.), pp. 148–175. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, UK.Google Scholar
Toups, M., Kitchen, A., Light, J. E. and Reed, D. L. (2010). Origin of clothing lice indicates early clothing use by anatomically modern humans in Africa. Molecular Biology and Evolution 28, 29–32.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46, 35–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, H., Paesen, G. C., Nuttall, P. A. and Barbour, A. G. (1998). Male ticks help their mates to feed. Nature, London 391, 753–754.Google Scholar
Wikel, S. K. (2005). Development of vaccines for the control of blood-feeding arthropods: the combined use of proteomic and genomic strategies. In New Discoveries in Agrochemicals 33 (ed. Marshall Clark, J. and Ohkawa, H.), pp. 348–382. American Chemical Society, Washington DC, USA.Google Scholar