Polyplacidae is a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...

in the

suborder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized ...

Anoplura Sucking lice (known scientifically as Anoplura) are a parvorder of around 550 species of lice. All sucking lice are blood-feeding ectoparasites of mammals. They can cause localized skin irritations and are vectors of several blood-borne diseas ...

, the sucking lice. Lice in this family are known commonly as the spiny rat lice. The family has a

cosmopolitan distribution In biogeography, a cosmopolitan distribution is the range of a taxon that extends across most or all of the surface of the Earth, in appropriate habitats; most cosmopolitan species are known to be highly adaptable to a range of climatic and en ...

. As of 2010 there were 193 species.Light, J. E., et al. (2010)
Evolutionary history of mammalian sucking lice (Phthiraptera: Anoplura).
''BMC Evolutionary Biology'', 10(1), 292. These are small to medium-sized lice. They are usually

sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

. They have 5-segmented antennae and small, slender, clawed forelegs. Their middle and hindlegs may be almost equal in size, or the hindlegs may be larger.Durden, L. A. & Webb, J. P. (1999)
''Abrocomaphthirus hoplai'', a new genus and species of sucking louse from Chile and its relevance to zoogeography.
''Medical and Veterinary Entomology'', 13(4), 447-452. Lice in this family are

parasites Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The en ...

of many types of small mammals, including spiny rats,

cavies Caviidae, the cavy family, is composed of rodents native to South America and includes the domestic guinea pig, wild cavies, and the largest living rodent, the capybara. They are found across South America in open areas from moist savanna to th ...

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores and live Solitary animal, solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are precociality, able to fend for themselves ...

chinchilla Chinchilla refers to either of two species ('' Chinchilla chinchilla'' and '' Chinchilla lanigera'') of crepuscular rodents of the parvorder Caviomorpha, and are native to the Andes mountains in South America. They live in colonies called "her ...

bushbabies Galagos , also known as bush babies or ''nagapies'' (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They are ...

lemur Lemurs ( ; from Latin ) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea ( ), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are Endemism, ...

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrel ...

shrew Shrews ( family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to dif ...

s, pouched rats,

treeshrew The treeshrews (also called tree shrews or banxrings) are small mammals native to the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia. They make up the entire order Scandentia (from Latin ''scandere'', "to climb"), which split into two families: the ...

hyrax Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, stout, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the family Procaviidae within the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Modern hyraxes are typically between in length a ...

es, and

Oriental dormice The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term ''Occident'', which refers to the Western world. In English, it is largely a meto ...

. Members of this family are quite variable based on its current description and molecular data suggest that the family is

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

. It requires study and a revision to make the description of the family as a whole more accurate. Genera include:Polyplacidae.
Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) *'' Abrocomaphthirus'' *'' Ctenophthirus'' *'' Cuyana'' *'' Docophthirus'' *'' Eulinognathus'' *'' Fahrenholzia'' *'' Galeophthirus'' *'' Haemodipsus'' *'' Johnsonpthirus'' *'' Lagidiophthirus'' *'' Lemurpediculus'' *'' Lemurphthirus'' *'' Linognathoides'' *'' Mirophthirus'' *'' Neohaematopinus'' *'' Phthirpediculus'' *'' Polyplax'' *'' Proenderleinellus'' *'' Sathrax'' *'' Scipio'' *'' Typhlomyophthirus''

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q11822990 Lice Insect families