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Lice Unto the Ages

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University of Utah biologists studied the genetics of whale lice small crustaceans that are parasites on endangered right whales and showed the giant whales split into three species 5 million to 6 million years ago … One southern right whale crossed the equator 1 million to 2 million years ago, leaving evidence of the trip when its whale lice bred with those on North Pacific right whales.

Most cetaceans carry populations of benign ectoparasites called cyamids or ‘whale lice’, which are amphipod crustaceans (Caprellidea; Cyamidae). Cyamids spend all life stages on whales, feeding on the outer surface of their host’s epidermis (Rowntree 1983, 1996). They roam widely on their hosts, but because they have no free-swimming stage they can migrate only between whales that contact each other. The ecological universe of a cyamid population is therefore well defined and sharply bounded, consisting of many virtually identical and constantly moving habitat islands (whales) that occasionally replace themselves through a simple birth-and-death process.

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