Lice

Pubic lice are becoming extinct¹.

This got me thinking about the evolution of pubic lice.   Our distant ancestors were covered in hair from head to foot until about 1.2 million years ago².  It doesn’t take such a leap of the imagination to therefore assume that they were also covered from head to foot in lice.  As (most) humans evolved to be increasingly less hairy does that mean the types of lice which lived in human hair were forced to live in smaller and smaller habitats?

The conclusion must be drawn that head lice and pubic lice are examples of divergent evolution and both must have had a common ancestor at some point (the whole-body louse, if you will).

Will nits lament the passing of their brothers and sisters, who were long ago relegated to the pungent marshlands of the pubis?

_{1.SOURCE: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brazilian-bikini-wax-making-crab-lice-endangered/}

_{2.SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/19/science/why-humans-and-their-fur-parted-ways.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm}