Sucking lice (Anoplura) have around 500 species and represent the smaller of the two traditional suborders of lice. The Anoplura are all blood_feeding ectoparasites of mammals. They can cause localised skin irritations and are vectors of several blood-borne diseases.
At least three species of Anoplura are parasites of humans. Pediculus humanus is divided into two subspecies, Pediculus humanus humanus, or the body louse, sometimes nicknamed "the seam squirrel" for its habit of laying of eggs in the seams of clothing, and Pediculus humanus capitis, or the head louse. Phthirus pubis (the pubic louse) is the cause of the embarrassing condition known as crabs.
All suckinglice (Anoplura) are obligate parasites, spending their whole life on the skin of a mammal and living exclusively on blood.
The Anoplura have, so far as is known, no insects which are parasitic upon them and probably very few enemies, except their hosts.
Those who have studied the Anoplura, or lice, have found that those mammals which are closely related to one another tend to have closely related or identical lice.
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