Table 4.

Body length, life-cycle length and number of mitochondrial genes per minichromosome of five species of blood-sucking lice

Species of lice	Pig louseHaematopinus suis	Rat lousePolyplax spinulosa	Human pubic lousePthirus pubis	Human body lousePediculus humanus	Human head lousePediculus capitis
Adult body length (mm)	4-6	0.6-1.5	1.3-2.0	2.3-3.6	2.1-3.3
Length of life cycle (days)	29-48	25-28	16-25	14-20	13-17
Mitochondrial genes per minichromosome	4.1	3.4	2.4	2.1	2.1

Note: The information of body length and life cycle was from Dynum et al. [31], Florence [32], Wall and Shearer [30] and Baker et al. [33] for the pig louse; from Baker [22] and Goodwin et al. [34] for the rat louse; from Buxton [35] and Service [36] for the human pubic louse; and from Buxton [35], Buxton [37] and Service [36] for the human body louse and head louse.