Nutrition
C. meleagridis is classified as a "chewing louse", which means it has specialized mouthparts (mandibles) for chewing on bits of feathers, skin scales, and dandruff off of its host. These mandibles can be seen on the photo below as the brown spot on the head, or on the first photo of the Reproduction page. The host of C. meleagridis is the turkey, both wild and domesticated (Emerson 1962).
The digestive system of C. meleagridis is split into three parts: the foregut (mouth and esophagus), the midgut (stomach and gastric ceca), and the hindgut (intestine, rectum, and anus) (Hickman et al. 2009).
