Latest Parasitology Stories
Do we now need to worry about vampire spiders? Well, only if you live in New Zealand and are a female mosquito. Picky eaters by any standards, E. culicivora jumping spiders, also known as vampire spiders, feed almost exclusively on female mosquitoes, which are filled with blood from their victims. Ximena Nelson from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, says, “You can see from the diet when you find them in the field that there is a high number of mosquitoes in what they eat”....
[ Watch the Video ] Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Anyone who has ever seen mosquitoes fly in the rain has probably rooted for the tiny pests to be taken out of the air by the constant barrage of aqua missiles sometimes weighing 50 times their mass. Unfortunately, mosquitoes have nothing to worry about because their low mass, wing design, hydrophobicity, and hard exoskeleton afford them substantial protection from the rain, according to a new report published in the Proceedings of...
Increases in the diversity of parasites that attack amphibians cause a decrease in the infection success rate of virulent parasites, including one that causes malformed limbs and premature death, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study. According to CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Pieter Johnson, scientists are concerned about how changes in biodiversity affect the risk of infectious diseases in humans and wildlife. Charting the relationships between parasites and amphibians is...
New tray and rack system is expected to be able to successfully rear 140,000–175,000 adult mosquitoes per rack The requirement for efficient mosquito mass-rearing technology has been one of the major obstacles preventing the large scale application of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) against mosquitoes. However, according to a new article in the next issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology, scientists at the Untited Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the...
The online digestive health and wellness resource, ColonToxCleanse.com, has released new parasite cleansing recommendations for people suffering from pinworm, tapeworm, roundworm, hookworm or Giardia infestations. San Louis Obispo, CA (PRWEB) April 05, 2012 People infected by food born or pet transmitted parasites such as pinworm or hookworm, have a new resource for cleansing the infection with ColonToxCleanse.com releasing new parasite cleanse recommendations. People infected by...
Malaria infections among infants can be cut by up to 30 per cent when antimalarial drugs are given intermittently over a 12 month period, a three-year clinical trial in Papua New Guinea has shown. The trial showed the drug regime was effective against both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax malaria, the first time antimalarial drugs have been shown to prevent infections by both species of malaria. The treatment regime, called intermittent preventive treatment (IPT), protected the...
Carnivores in the Iberian Peninsula, such as the Iberian lynx, are under an increasingly serious threat: ticks that can adapt to changing climatic conditions and that can even survive in extremely arid environments. A study headed by Spanish researchers confirms the innate ability of ticks to adapt according to climate. The life cycle of ticks varies with changes to the climate, habitat or movement patterns of people and goods. These parasites and the pathogens they carry are a danger to...
New mathematical model explains how hosts survive parasite attacks In nature, how do host species survive parasite attacks? This has not been well understood, until now. A new mathematical model shows that when a host and its parasite each have multiple traits governing their interaction, the host has a unique evolutionary advantage that helps it survive. The results are important because they might help explain how humans as well as plants and animals evolve to withstand parasite...
Some disease-causing parasites are known to favor one sex over the other in their host species, and such differences between the sexes have generally been attributed to differences in immune responses or behavior. But in a new article, published February 28 in the magazine section of the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, David Duneau from Cornell University and Dieter Ebert from the University of Basel now propose that all sorts of characteristics that differ between the sexes of the...
[ Watch the Video ] Repellant overwhelms their odor sensors, scaring them away In a small, narrow, temperature-controlled lab room at Vanderbilt University live some of the most deadly and dangerous animals in the world. "These are Anopheles mosquitoes that still think that they're in Central Africa. We won't tell them any different," says Laurence Zwiebel, professor of molecular biology and pharmacology. Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes can be killers. In warmer climates, the...
Latest Parasitology Reference Libraries
Echinococcus multilocularis is a species of tapeworm that is classified within the Platyhelminthes phylum. It is one of a few worms that cause echinococcosis, a disease that affects many canid species including wolves, coyotes, foxes, jackals, domesticated dogs. Humans can also contract this disease. Adult members of this species can reach an average length of .2 inches, and like other species of tapeworm, its body is segmented by three proglottids. Its head, or scolex, is equipped with...
Trichinella spiralis, sometimes known as the pork worm, is a parasite within the Nematoda class. It can be found in pigs, rats, humans, and bears. This worm causes trichinosis in humans, most often from consuming undercooked pork. This species is the smallest within its class, reaching an average body length of .16 centimeters. Females are twice as large as males, displaying a sexual dimorphism. The reproductive organs of females are unique to the species in that the front end holds developed...
The eye-worm (Loa loa) is a species of roundworm within the Nematoda phylum. It can be found in India and Africa, among other areas. This species causes a disease known as Loa loa filariasis and is one of three species that can cause subcutaneous filariasis in humans. Females are larger than males, reaching an average body length of up to 2.7 inches, with males reaching an average body length of up to 1.3 inches. The first stage of life for the eye-worm begins when an adult worm, which is...
The common liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica), also known as the sheep liver fluke, is a parasitic flatworm in the Trematoda class. This species can infect sheep, cattle, humans, and other animals across the world. This species is one of the largest of its kind, reaching an average body length of 1.1 inches, with a width of up to .5 inches. This species is shaped like a worm and is typically wider at the front end, although some individuals have wider back ends. The front end holds a cone like...
The New World hookworm (Necator americanus) is a hookworm that can be found in the New World. This species, along with other species in the Nematode phylum, is a parasitic worm that is commonly found in cats, dogs, and humans. Infections from this species are known as Necatoriasis. However, there are two common species of hookworm that infest humans, known as the Old World hookworm (Ancylostoma duodenale) and the New World hookworm, so infections are generally known as hookworm infections....
