The Insects That Can Live In Your Hair

PLEASE NOTE: We are a structural pest control company. As such, we DO NOT treat the human body, animals, or provide medical advice. If you have insects or other organisms in your hair, on your scalp, or elsewhere on your body, we recommend contacting a medical professional. 

For many people, creepy-crawlies like insects and spiders are an unfortunate aspect of life. It is not uncommon to find bugs in the strangest of places during the summer season. Finding insects in your shower, for example, certainly qualifies as an unpleasant discovery, but it is the insects that we find on our bodies that is most disturbing. Bed bugs may not be the most terrifying insects to look at, but they are nevertheless among the most hated of insects due to their ability to inhabit our skin. Bed bugs are so small that people cannot always tell when they are present on their bodies and when they are not. Although bed bugs are tremendously annoying, they are not the worst types of insects to find on your body. As it turns out, there are several types of insects that can infest human hair, so think about that before you go to sleep tonight.

Botflies are among the most damaging of insects to humans. Unfortunately these insects are well represented in the United States, but they can also be found in Central and South America. Although botflies can burrow at any location on the human body, they are often found within people’s hair. By the time these insects are found, they have likely already laid their eggs beneath the surface of a person’s scalp. Botflies lay their eggs on warm blooded animals. They choose to lay their eggs in bodily regions that are hairy in order to minimize the chances of the host finding the eggs. After the eggs hatch, the larvae burrow into a person’s skin, where a parasitic infection is then spread. The larvae resemble worms, and they can even be seen traveling directly below the surface of a person’s skin.

Chiggers can also be found in people’s hair, and they too can be found within the US, especially the southeast. Chiggers are often mistakenly called insects, but they are really arachnids. Chiggers, like botfly larvae, burrow beneath the skin where they can cause infection. However, chiggers cannot live on human blood alone, which means that they will eventually die while inside of your body.