Parasite of the Day

This parasite can be baaaaad, to sheep - and to humans. Fasciola hepatica , or the common liver fluke, is a trematode parasite with a typic...

The New World screwworm, Cochliomyia hominivorax , is a parasitic dipteran whose maggot larvae invade organs or tissues of living organisms ...

Originally confused with Toxoplasma gondii , Neospora caninum is a coccidian parasite that alternates between cattle hosts where it forms c...

Dicrocoelium dendriticum , better known as the lancet fluke, is a species of fluke that lives in the liver of grazing mammals such as sheep....

Poor babies - baby horses, that is. Strongyloides westeri is a nematode known as a threadworm that can make foals very sick by giving them...

The aptly named Dioctophyma renale reaches maturity in the host’s kidneys. Also known as giant kidney worms, they are one of the largest nem...

Growing up, I was an avid horseback rider and had both a horse and a pony. Today's parasite was always one of the things I dreaded abou...

Although most commonly found infecting pigs, Ascaris suum , a large roundworm nematode, can also infect humans. This species has the same l...

Oh man - this is a nasty one. I had a really hard time finding a photo that wasn't completely disgusting and opted for just a nice imag...

What do you call a fly that doesn't fly? In this case, you call it a sheep ked. Melophagus ovinus is a very common ectoparasite of sh...

Having a pork roast for Sunday dinner? Then, you probably don't want to think about today's parasite, Taenia solium , the pork tape...

Brucella abortus is a gram-negative bacterium that uses cattle and other ruminants as its primary host. It can however, also be transmitte...

The tórsalo or human bot fly, Dermatobia hominis , undergoes larval development in the skin of a vertebrate host. They frequently infest cat...

When people think of tapeworms, they often think of very long ones, like Taenia saginata . Echinococcus granulosis is a tiny tapeworm – tin...