Did Body Lice Evolve from Head Lice?

We started wearing clothes about 70,000 years ago - at least according to our lice genes. At that time the body louse (Pediculus humanus humanus) evolved from the head louse (P. humanus capitis), say Mark Stoneking and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Can head lice turn into body lice?

In addition, fieldwork has shown that, in populations living in extreme poverty, the proliferation of head lice led to the emergence of lice able to adapt to clothes and turn into body lice. These body lice were then able to cause epidemics of body lice and bacterial epidemics.

How did body lice evolve?

They found that clothing lice diverged from head lice between 80,000 and 170,000 years ago, most likely at the earlier end of that range. This means humans were likely tinkering with clothing use before leaving Africa, Reed said.