Abstract

Although most epidemic human infectious diseases are caused by recently introduced pathogens, cospeciation of parasite and host is commonplace for endemic infections. Occasional host infidelity, however, provides the endemic parasite with an opportunity to survive the potential extinction of its host. Such infidelity may account for the survival of certain types of human lice, and it is currently exemplified by viruses such as HIV.

Highlights

  • Writing on infections of humankind, Tony McMichael and I [5] have called those that cospeciated with their hosts ‘family heirlooms’ and those that crossed over from other hosts in recent evolutionary time ‘new acquisitions’

  • It is a tale of infidelity that I shall begin with the recent research on lice of David Reed and colleagues [2,3] and of Mark Stoneking’s group [4] who, on the basis of phylogenetic analysis, have speculated that we may have acquired a clade of head lice from another hominid species and pubic lice from gorillas; they have suggested that lice might help determine the date when humans adopted clothing

  • I shall examine this unfolding story in the context of what we know about microbial infections, and will look at the promiscuity of viruses through the lens of modern molecular technology; and I will add my own speculation on why naked apes have pubic hair

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Summary

Introduction

Writing on infections of humankind, Tony McMichael and I [5] have called those that cospeciated with their hosts ‘family heirlooms’ and those that crossed over from other hosts in recent evolutionary time ‘new acquisitions’. Given that the closest relative of the human head and body louse, Pediculus humanus, is P. schaeffi, which infests chimpanzees, one might assume that human and chimp lice have cospeciated with their hosts as family heirlooms ever since they diverged from a common ancestor.

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Conclusion

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