Kids might not be socialising in classrooms right now, but that doesn’t mean head lice aren’t doing the rounds.

If just reading that sentence has made you itchy, you’re not alone. And it turns out head lice are completely different from nits – yes, we had no idea either.

A survey of more than 1,000 UK parents by head lice experts Hedrin found over half of those surveyed thought nits and head lice were the same thing.

But it turns out head lice are the living creatures (small insects, about 3mm long) and nits are simply the empty egg cases (usually brown or white in colour) that head lice hatch from. Who knew?

“There are lots of myths about head lice that circulate among parents when an outbreak occurs,” said Ian Burgess, a louse expert and director of the Medical Entomology Centre.

Here are some of them...

1. Head lice get nourishment from human hair

Wrong. Half of parents believed this to be true, but the truth is that head lice are a type of parasite that feed on human blood. Delightful.

2. Head lice can jump from head to head

Just one in five (21% of) parents correctly identified this to be false. Head lice actually spread from direct........

© HuffPost