Scottish Animal Welfare Commission: welfare of cleaner fish used in the Scottish salmon industry - report

Appendix VI– Lifecycle of the sea louse Lepeoptheirus salmonis.

Diagram 1. The diagram shows the life stages of Lepeoptheirus salmonis. It shows that the male and female salmon lice cannot be distinguished by the naked eye in the nauplius, copepodid and chalimus stages. Sex determination by visual inspection is possible from the first pre-adult stage.

Barrett et al., (2020) state that chemical delousing (in-feed or bath) and fresh or brackish water delousing are effective again the larval stages (nauplii and copepodids), sessile stages (chalimus I and II) and mobile stages (pre-adult and adult). Physical and thermal delousing treatments are used for the sessile and mobile stages, while cleaner fish are used only for the mobile stages.

Sea Lice Research Centre (University of Bergen) 2020, "SLRC - Life cycle of the salmon louse (Lepeophtheirus salmonis)", DataverseNO. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.