(CNN) When it comes to love, as the song says, birds, bees, even educated fleas do it.

But that old, catchy Cole Porter tune certainly didn't consider the impact of fleas -- educated or not -- and other creepy hair crawlers on a woman's ability to love a man with a beard.

According to a new study, if a woman runs screaming from hair-dwelling creatures such as lice, ticks, fleas and the like, she's likely to find men with beards much less attractive.

It's on an unconscious level, of course. But from the viewpoint of her inner animal brain, who wants to pucker up to a mouth fringed by a thicket of hair that might contain tiny, squirmy, maggot-like creatures?

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