Parasite Rex

Parasite Rex was a complex book describing the life of a parasite. In today’s society, parasites are seen as useless creatures that live their lives at the expense of another’s, but Carl Zimmer portrays them in a much different light. He brilliantly displays that parasites have received a poor reputation but are in fact a major contributor to life on earth today.

The beginning of the book describes how early scientists discovered parasites. Leeuwenhoek, Steenstrup and Koch, just to name a few, were the early scientists that discovered small creatures that seemed to infest others. One scientist, Ray Lankester, is responsible for parasite’s vicious reputation. He studied the parasite known as Sacculina, a parasite that inhabits crabs. He thought that it was born as a free-living organism that degenerated into a parasite, giving up the majority of its body to inhabit the body of another. Zimmer proved that these scientists were wrong about the evolution of the Sacculina, when in fact they are not degenerates, but rather very complex life forms.

The book continues on to describe the lives of several other parasites. One group is known as blood flukes, which inhabit the liver. One fluke, Schistosoma mansoni, lives in sna

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They were portrayed as horrible life threatening monsters that lived their lives at the expense of someone else’s and served no useful purpose but to kill earth’s creatures.

Many scientific explanations are made for how parasites can invade our bodies untouched. Parasites were given a vastly inaccurate reputation. Two main theories exist about the beginning of sex: The Tangled bank theory and The Lottery. It can navigate inside the abdominal cavity as if it had a road map. Evolution is the change that species go through that makes them better suited to their environment. One particular concept is called the Red Queen. Humans may construct buildings that touch the sky and we may harness energy and build massive cities, but we cannot stop the advancement of one of earth’s tiniest most powerful creatures. Every habitat whether it’s in the sea or in the trees, has several different niches and there’s not enough room for everyone. In either case, sex shifts the gene pool around that organisms can protect themselves from constant change. They started evolution by making organisms adapt to different niches of the earth. Sometimes it is catastrophic events that force a species to change rapidly, other times it’s something much less obvious. These include specially shaped bodies or odd behavior that would fend off parasitic animals that may attack them. The Tangled Bank theory states that sex gets organisms ready for a very harsh world.

Approximate Word count = 1761
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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