August 26, 2010
In the evolutionary battle between birds and feather lice, the lice have evolved a new defense: camouflage. An upcoming study in The American Naturalist looked at 26 pairs of related bird species with different color feathers and compared their body lice to their feather colors. With the help of Photoshop, the team found that in almost every case, the body lice matched the feathers of their host:
That’s a good strategy, considering that birds pick these lice off with their beaks and could spot the bugs easily if they stood out, the authors will report in the October issue of The American Naturalist.
However, head lice, which can’t be seen by the birds, were always dark, implying they weren’t subject to the same pressures to blend in that the body lice were.
For more, see the summary from Science Magazine.