Parasite of the Day: Eustrongylides ignotus

May 29, 2011

Eustrongylides ignotus

Eustrongylides ignotus is an extremely pathogenic nematode which lives in the wall of the stomach (proventriculus) of herons and egrets and has caused die-offs in nesting colonies of some birds. Its bright color has earned it the nickname of “the big red worm.” The life cycle involves oligochaetes as the first intermediate host and various fish as the infective intermediate host. If the small fish are ingested by larger fish, reptiles, or amphibians, these can act as transport hosts. The color in this larval worm in a mosquitofish has been bleached out by the preservative. If straightened out, it would be longer than the fish.

Contributed by Mike Kinsella.

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Tip of the iceberg: an introduction

Have you just came across this blog about parasites? To get a brief story on what you've been missing out on, see:

Here for the 2018 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2017 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2016 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2015 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2014 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2013 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2012 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2011 end-of-year round-up

Here for the 2010 end-of-year round-up

Hint: You're just looking at the tip of the iceberg...

Why Parasite of the Day? (If it's not every day...)

The United Nations declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. In celebration of the enormous diversity of parasites and to highlight their importance, we created this blog, which showcased a species of parasite every day. Now that 2010 is over, we will continue to add more parasites from time to time, and write about any newly published research on parasite species that we have posted about yet.

See this post from the start of 2011 where we discuss the sheer scale of parasite biodiversity, and this post from the end of 2011 pretty much summarizes the mission of this blog.

Got Parasites?

Got parasites? The American Society of Parasitologists is interested. We invite you to share with us your observations, ideas and questions about parasites. Our members and The Journal of Parasitology represent a wide range of research interests including ecology, evolution, systematics, immunology, biochemistry and molecular biology. Please post any aspect of parasitology you wish to share with us on our Facebook Group Page. Please go to our home page at http://asp.unl.edu/ and look for the ASP on Facebook link.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

The Membership Committee of ASP

Marius Fuentes

Spain
Hugo Mejia-Madrid

Mexico
Mike Moser

USA

May 29, 2011

Eustrongylides ignotus

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