Evidence of sympatry of clade a and clade B head lice in a pre-Columbian Chilean mummy from Camarones.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 24204678.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0076818 and PMC identifier PMC3752820.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Three different lineages of head lice are known to parasitize humans. Clade A, which is currently worldwide in distribution, was previously demonstrated to be present in the Americas before the time of Columbus. The two other types of head lice are geographically restricted to America and Australia for clade B and to Africa and Asia for clade C. In this study, we tested two operculated nits from a 4,000-year-old Chilean mummy of Camarones for the presence of the partial Cytb mitochondrial gene (270 bp). Our finding shows that clade B head lice were present in America before the arrival of the European colonists.