The organisms that parasitize humans include fungi, leeches, lice, viruses, protozoa, tapeworm, etc.
A few examples of parasites are tapeworms, fleas, and barnacles. Tapeworms are segmented flatworms that attach themselves to the insides of the intestines of animals such as cows, pigs, and humans. They get food by eating the host's partly digested food, depriving the host of nutrients.
Examples of parasitism are the helminths (worms) in the intestines of the host, lice (Pediculus humanus capitis) in human head, Plasmodium species transmitted by anopheline mosquito and causing malaria in humans.
There are three main classes of parasites that can cause disease in humans: protozoa, helminths, and ectoparasites.
Ectoparasites- The parasites that live upon the surface of the body of the host are known as ectoparasites. Examples of ectoparasites are fleas, ticks, etc. Endoparasites- The parasites that live inside the body of the host are known as endoparasites. Examples of endoparasites are- roundworms, protozoa in blood, etc.
Some examples of common marine parasites are copepods, isopods, monogeneans, digeneans, nematodes, cestodes, and acanthocephalans. Viruses and bacteria are also considered to be parasites.
There are a number of parasites that cause diseases in humans. Parasitic diseases are most common in developing countries in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world (Figure 3). These places are often hot and humid, conditions which are suitable for the growth of many parasites.
Giardia is arguably the most common parasite infection of humans worldwide, and the second most common in the United States after pin-worm. 8,9. Between 1992 and 1997, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that more than 2.5 million cases of giardiasis occur annually. 10.
Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes.
Examples of common parasites found in the ocean include nematodes, leeches, and barnacles. That's right—though barnacles exist commensally with whales, they are parasites for swimming crabs. A barnacle may root itself within a crab's reproductive system.
Answer and Explanation: An example of parasitism in the rainforest is the strangler fig tree and their host trees. Strangler figs are a category of fig tree that wrap around a host tree and form a hollow shell. The fig tree outcompetes the host for sunlight and nutrients, smothering it.
Lesson Summary
Ectoparasites (like mosquitos, ticks, and head lice) live on the skin of the host in an area where they can easily feed off the blood of the host. Endoparasites (like tape worms and roundworms) live inside the body of the host and benefit from the nutrients found within their digestive tracts.
A parasite is an organism, or living thing, that lives on or inside another organism. It depends on the other organism for food and other things that it needs to live. The parasite's victim is called its host. The host is usually much larger than the parasite.
Are Mosquitoes Parasites? In biological terms, organisms that live on a host and depend on it to survive are parasites. Even though they feed on their host's blood, mosquitoes do not live on their hosts as do head lice, for example.
It's easy—hopeful, perhaps—to think of them as oddities of nature, as grisly outliers that we would only encounter through extreme bad luck. But as I noted in my TED talk, parasitism is the rule rather than the exception. It's estimated that around 40 percent of animal species are parasites.
Top of the Food Chain
Many sharks actually have unwanted passengers, called copepods, clinging to their skin and gills. They behave like fleas on a shark, although they are only distantly related to the insects known to pester cats and dogs. Still, they feed off of their host in a similar manner.
Tapeworms and Flukes
Several cestodes (tapeworms) and trematodes (flukes) are parasites on freshwater fish. One such tapeworm is Ligula whose life cycle consists of several stages which are parasitic in turn on crustaceans, fish and birds. Fish infected with Ligula exhibit grossly distended abdomens.
Fish get infected with parasites when they feed on intermediate hosts. The definitive host for fish roundworms are marine mammals like seals and dolphins and birds that feed on fish like cormorants and seagulls. These hosts shed eggs in their faeces which hatch into larvae in the water.
Parasites may be grouped according to where they live. Ectoparasites, such as fleas and ticks, live on the surface of a host. Endoparasites, such as intestinal worms and protozoa in blood, live inside a host's body. Mesoparasites, such as some copepods, enter the opening of a host body and partially embed themselves.
Parasitism is a nonmutual relationship between two organisms in which one benefits at the expense of the other. There are two types of parasites affecting living organisms: ectoparasites (living on the surface of host) and endoparasites (living in the body of host).
It's rare in the United States but may occur in the rural Southeast. Infection occurs from contaminated food or water. Adult worms can grow more than a foot long. Usually, they don't cause symptoms.
There are several types of internal parasites that cause problems in cats. These include roundworms, such as Toxocara cati, Toxascaris leonina; heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis); tapeworms, such as Dipylidium caninum, Taenia species, and Echinococcus species; and hookworms, such as Ancylostoma species.