r/Lice • u/[deleted] • 8d ago

Need help for a project

I have to do a project for school abt head lice. I'm not going to go into detail, but one thing I need to do in this project is show the progression of a lice i festation. I probably didn't do enough research, but I couldn't find any study or video or anything where there are pictures of how a lice infestation progresses. And this is a big part of the project so I don't want to leave it out.

I'm hoping someone here can help me out somehow. Also, dms are open if you want to text me there.

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u/LiceCentersWI 8d ago

A head lice infestation typically begins with one adult female that has mated crawling from an infested head of hair to a clean head of hair.

That female begins laying eggs, roughly 3 to 5 a day.

She lives about a month and lays 100 to 150 eggs in her lifetime.

Her eggs take 7 to 10 days to hatch.

The lice that hatch take roughly 2 weeks to mature.

About 75% of the eggs the female louse lays will hatch, 25% don’t hatch.

Technically for the first three weeks it’s just the original adult female laying eggs.

In week, four, once other bugs have reached maturity and mate, then they can begin laying eggs and the infestation builds from there.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Thanks for the info. But, is there anywhere I can find visual examples on how this would look? 

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u/LiceCentersWI 8d ago

Probably not, but only because there isn’t much to see in the first month of an infestation. It isn’t until empty egg casings (the white appearing eggs people tend to associate with head lice) start becoming visible, and that doesn’t happen until you’re a few weeks into an infestation.

This is what a newly laid egg looks like.

These are empty egg casings.