[featured image] Parasitic platyhelminthes, particularly the flukes, have the most complex life cycles of any animal, involving two or more hosts and an elaborate sequence of developmental stages that allows each egg laid by the adult to spawn huge numbers of infective juveniles via asexual reproduction. The photo and video …
This post isn’t about the famous Viz character, rather the mind-boggling diversity of nematodes, which I touched on in a previous post. One nematode that beautifully illustrates the bizarre life histories of these animals is Sphaerularia bombi, a parasite of queen bumblebees. Like so many other parasites this little nematode manipulates …
[featured image] Flies are supremely successful animals, but they tend to get a lot of bad press and let’s be honest, the …