Parasite of the Day

Whales are big animals, even the "smaller" cetaceans such as dolphins and pilot whales are large animals in the range of body size...

Being on top of the food chain sounds like it'd be pretty awesome - all the other animals in the ecosystem are potentially your food and...

Today we're featuring a guest post by Sean O’Callaghan - a student from 4th year class of the Applied Freshwater and Marine Biology'...

During this blog's first year back in 2010, we featured a parasitic nematode (roundworm) that lives in the placenta of sperm whales of a...

Photo of Pennella balaenopterae embedded on the side of the porpoise's peduncle (from Fig 2 of the paper ) Most people usually thin...

Image from Figure 1 of the paper Today's parasite is an acanthocephalan (also known as a thorny-headed worm) and its name should be ...

image from here In the last post we met Acanthocephalus rhinensis - an acanthocephalan which lives a pretty normal life (for a thorny-...

The parasite for today is a tapeworm recovered from the intestine of an Andrews' Beak Whale ( Mesoplodon bowdoini ). This worm belongs t...

If you suddenly experience a sharp abdominal pain and have recently eaten sushi, ceviche, or pickled herring, there's a chance you might...

The last parasite from "Whale Week" is Cryptococcus gattii , which both infects whales and dolphins, but also has been all over th...

Living in the respiratory tract of a whale presents certain challenges that are not faced by those inhabiting the respiratory tract of a ter...

Anisakid nematodes are well-known as gastrointestinal parasites of various marine mammals. They utilise crustaceans like krill and amphipods...

Some of you might be familiar with the New Zealand movie "Whale Rider" - well, the parasite featured today is a real whale rider. ...

Helpless whales and dolphins stranded on a beach are always a dismaying sight for any animal lover, and the causes of stranding can often be...

The parasite featured today is the longest known parasitic nematode, appropriately, its host is also one of the largest known living animal...