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Evidence of Sympatry of Clade A and Clade B Head Lice in a Pre-Columbian Chilean Mummy from Camarones

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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Boutellis, Amina, Drali, Rezak, Rivera, Mario A., Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y., Raoult, Didier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3813697/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24204678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076818
Descripción
Sumario: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.