LIBRARY

CHAPTER XXI
18. Order ANOPLURA I Leach 1816
(An'o-plu'ra, from the Greek ap01T"AOS, unarmed, + (Jupa,
tail; referring to the rather naked and tailless condition.)
German, Uiuse. French, Poux.
True Lice, Sucking Lice.
Minute to small, flattened, elongated, or crab-like apterous insects with simple
metamorphosis; mouth parts piercing and sucking, retractile, with fleshy unsegmented
rostrum; integument tough and elastic; head small; compound eyes reduced or absent;
ocelli absent; thorax narrow and partly fused; legs short, stout, with one-segmented
tarsi and single claws usually specialized for grasping hairs j abdomen oval or somewhat
circular, nine-segmented; cerci absent. Permanently ectoparasitic on mammals.
IMPORTANT ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS
External
Size - minute to small. 0.35-6.50 mm.
long.
Shape -long, slender, oval, or crab-like;
flattened dorsally.
Integument - tough and elastic, partly
chitinized, smooth, hairy, or scaly.
Color - mostly pale or gray; chitinized
areas yellow, brown, or dusky.
Head - small, narrow, pointed, prognathous.
Antennre - setiform, short, three- or
Internal
Digestive System.
Alimentary canal- buccal funnel is the
anterior part of the fore intestine;
(Esophagus passes directly to the
stomach, which {)ccupies most of the
abdomen.
Enteric ca!ca - present in Pedz·culus.
Hind intestine - straight.
Malpiglzian tubes - four.
Rectal paPil/a! - six in a whorl.
Salivary gland" - two pairs in thorax;
1 The author is following general practice in using the name ANOPLURA for this group of
insects. but would like to call attention to the following facts:
The order PARASITA, erected by Latreille in 1802 to include the biting lice and the Bucking
lice. can no more be ignored than the Linmean orders NEUROPTERA and HEMIPTERA
which have been divided to form new orders, but which still have been retained for at leaHt a
part of the heterogenous group originally included under those names. Since the bird lice
were separated off into a new order, MALLOPHAGA. by Nitzsch in 1818 before Latreille, in
1825, redefined the PARASITA by dividing the members into the two families or groups
MANDIBULATA, or biting bird lice, and SIPHUNCULATA. or sucking lice, it is only
following the accepted laws of priority to retain the name PARASITA for the sucking lice
wherever. as in this worlt. these insects are placed in a separate and distinct order. In accordance
with this arrangement, such names as ANOPLURA Leach 1815, SIPHUNCULATA
Latreille 1825. Meinert 1891. PEDICULINA Burmeister 1835. PEDICULIDA Mayer 1876,
POL YPTERA Banks 1892. and PEDICULOIDA Crampton 1921 fall as synonyms. Comstock
and Comstock (1895) were among the first of modern entomologists to adopt the name
PARASITA exclusively for the sucking lice. but only as a suborder of the order HEMIPTERA.
This lead was followed by Essig (1913). Osborn (1923) placed them in the suborder PARA­
SITICA in the order HEMIPTERA, a system followed by a number of other systematists.
202