Carl Zimmer has another terrific post up on The Loom. This time he considers the three million year-old history we and gorillas have shared with pubic lice. Nice!
Hand Me The Quellada Lotion…
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2 responses to “Hand Me The Quellada Lotion…”
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Gorillas – pubic lice – yes Geoff, your blog never disappoints. Heh. Is there a Darwinian argument here?
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Gelert – yes, absolutely there’s a Darwinian argument! The gorillas’ pubic lice made the jump three million years ago to us because early humans were already losing hair, and had lost other species of lice (apart from the head lice) as a result. Thus, the pubic lice moved into an empty ecological niche, and didn’t have to compete with other lice on us… As the song goes on an ancient 78 record I have: "there are no flies on auntie"…
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