Weighing in at only 40 grams, brown mouse lemurs are one of the smallest species of primate in the world. Their diminutive size as well as their nocturnal, tree-dwelling lifestyle makes them difficult to track and observe. It would have been completely understandable if Sarah Zohdy, a graduate student at the University of Helsinki, had simply given up her quest to understand the social structure of these elusive creatures — but she didn't. Instead, she and her colleagues came up with an ingenious way to study the interactions of these small lemurs: they followed their lice.
For as long as there have been mammals, there have been lice. Though it's hard to find lice in the fossil record, scientists have estimated that the group originated at least 130 million years ago, feeding off feathered dinosaurs, though they now live on just about all species of birds and mammals. Lice tend ...
