Parasite of the Day

Student guest post time! One of the assessments that I set for students in my ZOOL329 Evolutionary Parasitology class is for them to summari...

The study in this post takes us to one of the darkest corners of the deep sea, over 7000 m below sea level in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, lo...

The horned passalus beetle ( Odontotaenius disjunctus )  is an insect that is commonly found in rotting logs. These beetles do more than jus...

Parasitic crustaceans can evolve into some pretty funky forms and they have been featured multiple times on this blog. These crustacean...

Rickia wasmannii is a fungus that lives on ants, and when it comes to ants and fungi most people usually think of Ophiocordyceps , i.e. the...

A few years ago, rainbow trout at a trout farm in the Shiga prefecture, Japan, were being struck down by a mysterious illness. The flesh of ...

Pearls may look beautiful to us, but for some parasites, they represent a slow and claustrophobic death. Pearls are secreted by the soft and...

Leucochloridium paradoxum is one of those parasites which is immediately recognisable on sight. Commonly known as the "zombie snail par...

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

In the cold rivers and lakes of the arctic and subarctic region, there live some rather peculiar worms with a face full of tiny hooks and an...