Adaptation or opportunity?

Using mammal sucking lice to determine

drivers of host-parasite associations

We are interested in understanding what drives host-parasite relationships. We are using the Anoplura (sucking lice) parasite and mammalian host system to generate a comprehensive sucking louse phylogeny, test for co-evolution between hosts and lice, and assess the effect of morphology and geography on these relationships. This is an NSF-funded project (DEB 2206732).

Our project has an ambitious goal of sampling all species (~600) of sucking lice, through existing collections, combing museum study skins, and collaborations.

We need your help!

To complete this project we need lots of lice! We have been successful so far in getting lice from museum study skins. However, there are still some gaps in our search for lice!

If you have access to lice, or hosts of lice, we would love to hear from you! We are particularly looking for lice from aardvarks, zebras, camelids, and the Chinese pygmy dormouse.