Thread: parasites of parasites

a quick question to anyone who knows; are there any known viral/bacterial parasites to the macroparasitic worms? (malaria, toxocara, schiztesomaisis?)

Plasmodium spp. (malaria) aren't macroscopic, they're protist. Anyway, I don't know any examples off the top of my head but I'm sure there are, at least viral if not bacterial. There are bacteriophages that infect bacteria, so it would really surprise me if there weren't viruses infecting parasitic nematodes, trematodes, and cestodes.

Some bacterial pathogens against nematodes that are parasitic against plants have been tested as pesticides. Though, once worms are in your body growing in your muscle, like Trichonella, they're kinda out of reach of bacteria anyway.

It'd be probably safe to say that there are no organsims that don't have viruses associated with them - any that escaped viral infection would be incredibly interesting. I once heard it claimed that we have only surveyed less than 1% of all extant viruses, so's there's plenty to discover yet.

The viruses of single-celled eukaryotes (like the one of the organisms you refer to) has not been an area of intense study. Perhaps among the best studied viruses of single-celled eukaryotic parasites of Man are those that infect organsims of the Leishmania genus. There's a whole bunch of viruses called Leishmaniaviruses - double stranded DNA viruses of the Totiviridae group - that infect those organisms.

wow i didn't know... now that is very interesting....

i remeber an example its Bonelia.Its basically a parasite and further Male parasite of female.Its called hyper parasitism

Originally Posted by scienceguy8888

a quick question to anyone who knows; are there any known viral/bacterial parasites to the macroparasitic worms? (malaria, toxocara, schiztesomaisis?)

well yeah think so.