An order of parasitic insects commonly known as lice, characterized by sucking mouthparts and the absence of wings, living exclusively on mammal skin.
From Ancient Greek 'an-' (without) + 'hopla' (weapons/armor) + 'oura' (tail). Named in the 19th century because these lice lack the jumping legs (cerci) found in some other insects.
Lice have been our unwanted companions for millennia—DNA analysis shows they specialized into different species for each mammal, which means your lice are genetically different from dog lice, and we can trace human migration patterns by studying which lice variants go with which ancestral populations.
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