Amblycera is a parvorder of chewing lice from the infraorder Phthiraptera. The lice are ectoparasites and spend their entire lives parasitizing their hosts. Amblycera tend to mostly feed on birds, and have specialized anatomy to assist in feeding. The lice undergo a three part process of metamorphosis and survive around thirty days after moulting into an adult. They rely on a combination of skin debris and blood for nutrients to sustain themselves. Amblycera are distributed globally, and are very host–specific.
Amblycera is a parvorder of chewing lice from the infraorder Phthiraptera. The lice are ectoparasites and spend their entire lives parasitizing their hosts. Amblycera tend to mostly feed on birds, and have specialized anatomy to assist in feeding. The lice undergo a three part process of metamorphosis and survive around thirty days after moulting into an adult. They rely on a combination of skin debris and blood for nutrients to sustain themselves. Amblycera are distributed globally, and are very host–specific.
== Classification == Amblycera is currently classified as a parvorder, and it was named by Kellogg in 1896. Amblycera belongs to the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains all lice, and is part of the larger order Psocodea, which also contains booklice, barklice and barkflies. Around 30% of all bird lice belong to Amblycera. A cladogram showing the position of Amblycera within Phthiraptera and Psocodea is shown below: {{clade| style=font-size:85%; line-height:100% |label1=Psocodea |1={{clade |1={{clade |label1=Troctomorpha |1={{clade |1= |2=Amphientometae }} |label2=Psocomorpha |2= }} |label2=Trogiomorpha |2= }} }}
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).