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59 comments to "Six Horrifying Parasites."
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Sam
August 21st, 2006 at
7:03 am
The snake on the staff comes from Moses. People were saved by looking at it, so it became a sign of salvation, appropriate for the medical field.
Or were you joking?
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Miss Cellania
August 21st, 2006 at
10:19 am
This post would make a wonderful diet aid. I’m not hungry anymore.
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Collin
August 21st, 2006 at
12:29 pm
Yeeeeargh. Skin… crawling.
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Alex
August 21st, 2006 at
1:11 pm
I thought the reall kicker for the Leucochloridium paradoxum story was the mind control:
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Dan
August 21st, 2006 at
5:01 pm
Scott Westerfeld’s book Peeps is about vampires (though the characters avoid the “v” word). It explains vampirism as a form of parasitism and every other chapter is about real parasites, some of which are included in the preceding blog entry.
It also discusses toxoplasmosis (a parasite found in cat feces) and discusses evidence that it has influence the minds of humans.
Keep that litter box clean. -
Eric N.
August 21st, 2006 at
6:20 pm
Did you mean the “snail shops for an eye patch” ?
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Dean Trippe
August 21st, 2006 at
9:36 pm
That’s totally amazing. I’m terrified.
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sam
August 21st, 2006 at
11:17 pm
omg…i couldn’t read past the first one. very interesting though. that guy pulling the worm at his foot looked very distrubing, but better than those pics of the deformed animals. those make me sad
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Alex
August 22nd, 2006 at
3:33 am
Thanks for the correction, Eric N!
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Cargo Cult
August 22nd, 2006 at
5:27 am
The crab parasite’s actually even worse than the description given here - it’s not a slug, it’s a kind of barnacle. A crustacean, like the crab.
http://www.mesa.edu.au/friends/seashores/crab_parasitism.html
The host crab is chemically castrated, and the distended growth at the base of the abdomen is the barnacle’s brood chamber - and how does it breed?
“A male cyprid of the same species of barnacle attaches itself to the opening of this brood chamber, and then grows inside a special chamber within the female barnacle which itself is inside the body of the parasitised crab. This male growth forms into a testis. The female then effectively becomes a hermaphrodyte, which means that it can fertilise itself.”
A parasite of a parasite.
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walter
August 22nd, 2006 at
6:16 am
A very readable account of parasites can be found in the book “Parasite Rex” bt Carl Zimmer.
http://carlzimmer.com/parasite_1.html
All six parasites are mentioned in the book.
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Keith L. Dick
August 22nd, 2006 at
6:54 am
Yuck… And thank the powers that be I never looked in those books…
But it’s good info to know I just hope I never need it…
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AJ Cann
August 22nd, 2006 at
10:48 am
You didn’t mention my favourite!
http://microbiologybytes.wordpress.com/2006/08/04/dominated-by-men/ -
CV
August 22nd, 2006 at
11:41 am
The ‘Leucochloridium paradoxum’ (LP) pathology is even weirder than the aricle states. I understand that LP will not survive an adult bird’s stomach acid, so the bird cannot eat the LP it plucks from the snail.
The bird must feed LP to its chicks which have much weaker digestive juices, where it will continue to live and spawn in the birds intestinal track.
Rinse - Lather - Repeat.
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healthynerd.com
August 22nd, 2006 at
12:18 pm
Oh my I certainly wasn’t ready when I Parasite Number 5!
Thank you for this information
:S kinda creepy. -
Marc
August 22nd, 2006 at
3:43 pm
I thought the snakes on the staff were from ancient Greek mythology. The Staff of Asclepius.
After digging some more I saw that this symbol has been attributed to Moses much alter on. It seems that some people like to attribute everything to the bible.
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Pelagius
August 22nd, 2006 at
3:47 pm
#1: The caduceus has nothing to do with Moses. It originated as the symbol of the Greek god Hermes. More at wikipedia
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dave
August 22nd, 2006 at
3:52 pm
Also, another interesting aspect of the ‘Leucochloridium paradoxum’ is that is alters the behavior of the snail. These snails usually stay under leaves to avoid predators, but when infected, they helplessly wander around the tops of leaves, in plain view of the predatory birds.
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Nio
August 22nd, 2006 at
4:06 pm
Ez undorÃtó he…
Nio -
Abhay
August 22nd, 2006 at
4:06 pm
#16: The Aesculapius staff has only one snake.
#17: Correct. The caduceus is related to Hermes and is a symbol of peace. It’s a Greek badge of honor.When the U.S. Army Medical Corps adopted the Cadeuceus it was because it was similar to the staff of Aesculapius, the Ancient Greek god of medicine. The Aesculapian staff is what the American Medical Association uses.
Personally, I would be more terrified of the Candirú than many of these. This is the one that is the stuff of urban legends. I will leave it to you to read on wikipedia.
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Glen C.
August 22nd, 2006 at
4:30 pm
So how would you know if you had that brain parasite mentioned in the comments here? And can people get it removed?
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andrewSV
August 22nd, 2006 at
7:07 pm
Holy crap! That´s it. Great ideas for new horror movies! the invasion of the “Giant Filarial Worms from Space!”, “Don´t stick that Cymothoa exigua at me!” or even “Sacculina carcini, the last Hitchhiker”. Heh.
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Amod
August 22nd, 2006 at
8:52 pm
What about candiru?
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HDC
August 22nd, 2006 at
10:35 pm
I was going to mention pin worms, but that thing in the dude’s foot kicks a pin worm’s ass (if they have asses) any day of the week. For the parents in the crowd, if you weren’t nauseated enough by these little horros go do a search for pin worms.
You can thank me later.
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Drhoz!
August 23rd, 2006 at
6:04 am
*happy sigh* nice to see somebody else with an appreciation for our little cunning cousins.
I cover various parasites at length in my LJ - starting with parasitic genes, and working thru allograft cancers that are passed as seperate organisms from host to host, thru the viruses, plants, fungi, protozoa, simple animals, and so on - currently about to embark on the Ecydozoa (that should keep me busy for a few months)
anybody interested in learning more about them is encouraged to have a look
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Dave
August 23rd, 2006 at
8:00 am
fascinating stuff, the crab one sounds well scary
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infernal
August 23rd, 2006 at
8:41 am
wednesday morning august 23 rd 2006 838 a.m.
from infernal at infernal_independant@yahoo.com
i have not had breakfast yet but i am loosing my appatite and all of these suckers are making me nausiated in my stomach -
LODGE_290
August 23rd, 2006 at
8:58 am
wednesday morning august 23 rd 2006 8:43 a.m.
from LODGE_290 at infernal_independant@yahoo.com
47 white male from mineral wells texas u.s.a.
good morning too all of my old good friends from old news baby that would not vote for any of my websites
and that is why you have not seen me this year posting on the brand new old news baby website but i do have alot of great brand new websites saved up that i will never post because i know that you will never give me enough points to win and i have been reading about all of your complaints about the brand new old news baby website not working right. so why have none of you emailed me all this year to keep me around and become great friends with all of this brand new free time that we have from not posting on old news baby ? any way these parasites get my vote this morning so keep on sucking hahahaha -
Don
August 23rd, 2006 at
10:00 am
Actually, the last sentence of the piece is correct as written. The comma placement implies that the subject “snail” is connected to the three verbs “shakes,” “shops,” and “vows.” Rewriting “the snail” three times would make the sentence sound ridiculous.
I don’t know why I care enough to tell this to you…I just do.
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Lasse
August 23rd, 2006 at
10:14 am
Arggh, i feel the need to get to an absolutely clean and sterile place now. Like space. Or inside a nuclear reactor.
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beajerry
August 23rd, 2006 at
11:09 am
You forgot about the wasp, Ampulex compressa, that taps into a beetle’s brain and then uses its chemicals to steer it back to the wasp’s nest.
Read about it at Carl Zimmer’s Loom:
http://scienceblogs.com/loom -
Mike
August 23rd, 2006 at
6:04 pm
There are bacteria that can survive in a nuclear reactor. Sorry to say that is not a “clean” place Lasse.
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Sean
August 23rd, 2006 at
10:04 pm
Centipedes? In my vagina?
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Trotsky
August 24th, 2006 at
7:55 am
They forgot to mention the most devious,dangerous and catastrophic social parasite ever known to mankind…the jew.
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Kurt
August 24th, 2006 at
11:17 am
Does the crab parasite make anybody think of the flood? Gad what a nightmare I am going to have thinking they are real now.
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WGunn
August 24th, 2006 at
4:01 pm
The reason no one has mentioned Toxoplasma gondii yet is because it is telling you not to.
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Sam
August 25th, 2006 at
5:48 am
Hello,
I have surfed on the net I have found your blog. It’s amazing. -
Nick
August 25th, 2006 at
8:52 pm
I feel sick.
I guess if you were really unlucky, you could get a screwworm, filarial worms and Guinea worms, whilst the “crabs” you suffer from thanks to that trip to the shop with no windows last year all get a sacculina carcini. Goodness only knows what they would do to your genitals!
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Karen
August 28th, 2006 at
12:11 am
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh, yikes, and eeeeeeeewwwwww!
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Susan
August 28th, 2006 at
4:41 am
This is gross website but it is fact.
Now i feel sick because i have been to France eaten the snail, after i read this site, i vowed myself, i never will eat the snail ever again…Thanks a lot!!
Will i be brave to read more about it?? NOT !!
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rainlasso628
September 25th, 2006 at
5:59 pm
Gross! Awesome! Eeeewwwww! Fascinating! Nauseating!
I had a carcini lover for 14 years and know just how that poor crab feels. -
Rob
November 8th, 2006 at
10:53 am
Sick stuff even the toung parisite and the screwworm
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Rob Bigner
November 8th, 2006 at
10:55 am
I am probubly not going to eat fish eny more
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KittieLuvr
November 23rd, 2006 at
4:09 pm
ewww…day make me so effing sick. i watched dis show on animal planet about parasites and it was disgusting…these r soooo gross. i wish i never came 2 dis section of da site. da rest of da site is gud tho…
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ScotsMartialArts
December 9th, 2006 at
1:11 am
“I thought the snakes on the staff were from ancient Greek mythology.”
Myth, Myth! From ancient Greek myth! Sorry this is a big pet peeve of mine. The stories themselves are myths. Mythology is the corpus of writing that analyzes myths. It’s somewhat similar to the difference between History and Historiography. You wouldn’t say you are a military historiography buff, when what you enjoy reading is John Keegan and Stephan Ambrose.
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Danny
January 5th, 2007 at
8:38 pm
You know how we keep getting asked for ‘absolute proof’ that evolution is in operation… well here it is, right here. You think God would have made any of these f*ckers by hand?
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dan hunter
March 9th, 2007 at
2:18 am
they only showed you six, and they are only mediocre on the terror scale.
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Alice
April 1st, 2007 at
2:13 pm
Well….I have this Biology teacher. He is a unique guy with “special” interests. Don’t get me wrong, I’m greatful because this means exciting essay topics that are easier to write.
Before, the topics ranged from parthenogenisis (asexual reproduction) to chimerism (people who have varying DNA through out their body i.e. their top organs do not match their bottom organs). Now he gave us an article about the Guinea Worm Disease.
Obviously, curiosity got the best of me and here we are…with belly aches.
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Cait
May 18th, 2007 at
7:34 pm
Wow, so much for EVER having an appetite again. This freaks me out! I remember seeing a special on TV about flesh-eating bacteria and this disgusts me just about as much. I can’t believe there are things out there like this. I hope I never experience them first hand!
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yo
May 29th, 2007 at
9:38 pm
omfg, the one with huge leg is crazy!!!!!!! I don’t even want to know what the first one is.
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Leila
June 13th, 2007 at
3:21 am
So weird i was looking for a worm thats small and white and when u crap they live in ur poop i know i know sick but some get stuck in ur butt and move around but when you pull them out of ur butt they stop moving why is that and what kind of parasite is it? i think it lives in sink water drains and other things.
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תולעי×
June 20th, 2007 at
2:27 am
wow! OMG!
this is insane…. -
John
June 21st, 2007 at
9:35 am
Quite gross, but also fascinating, in a freaky kind of way.
Animals are not the only ones who succumb to parasitic mind control:
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060803_tgondii_culture.htmlAbout half the human population (3 billion people) are infected with T. gondii.
The parasite is thought to have different, and often opposite effects in men versus women, but both genders appear to develop a form of neuroticism called “guilt proneness.”
And I thought that affliction was due to me being raised as a Catholic.
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Sarah
July 2nd, 2007 at
4:52 am
i remember watching videos on parasites, which i think included all of the above, in a biology class…
some guy ate a cyst or something similar from raw cows flesh and grew a tape worm (or some other sort of worm)… i think he had some mental problems, but it was actually, while disgusting, fairly interesting…
there was one part where the worm crawled about an inch or two out of a cut on his arm…
and I’ve lost my appetite just thinking about it again.
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Louie
July 4th, 2007 at
3:29 am
Damm man that stuff is hell interesting to read, i guess it would be distasteful to most, however is always good to read up on some fact especially about the Guinea worm, who knows i might be going to Africa soon!! >
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danushka
July 27th, 2007 at
1:06 am
wow this sounds so intresting!
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Jenn
August 7th, 2007 at
2:26 pm
To the very first person who posted:
The medicinal staff dates back much farther than Moses. It was originally a Greek symbol stolen by the Christians (as were the majority of Christian symbols) and it DID mean specifically “to heal”.
Take a history class.
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Retro
August 28th, 2007 at
10:01 am
I love anything vintage, especially old toys and cars.
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Tom
November 18th, 2007 at
4:07 pm
I think you’ll find that the Snakes around a staff does not come exclusively from Moses (Numbers 21:4–9). It was from an Ancient Greek legend like much of medicine’s symbolism. The Snakes wrapped around a staff was astrological and is known as “The Rod of Asclepius”. Asclepius was supposed to have been the son of Apollo and was a practitioner of medicine.
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