The Conversation

How ancient seafarers and their dogs helped a humble louse conquer the world

Author: Loukas Koungoulos, PhD Candidate, University of Sydney

Male (left) and female Heterodoxus spiniger from Borneo.Natural History Museum, London, Author provided

This is the story of how a parasitic, skin-chewing insect came to conquer the world.

For more than a century, scientists have been puzzled as to how an obscure louse native to Australia came to be found on dogs across the world. Heterodoxus...

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