From time to time, I think deeply about this: living things which propagate at the expense of others. Without those others, these conniving things perish. The "host" unknowingly, usually, provides food and shelter for the invader, which contrives to gradually usurp that host's life and vitality, while reproducing it's own ilk. Some parasites persist until they kill the host; then, they, too, must die. As the host putrefies, rest assured, other types of marauders take hold, further consuming the remains, until they, too, die. Many parasites continue to enjoy an existence of affluence for as long as their host remains alive. Certain intestinal worms can do that. The botfly is one particularly sickening type of parasite which infests larger animals. Enter the Botfly Wasp, a beneficial parasite. Parasitic wasps lay their eggs on bot fly larvae and their larvae destroy the bot fly in the process. "That's just one reason why we must be very careful about applying chemicals to "solve" a biological problem." See: https://www.bendsource.com/bend/wha...curious-life-of-bot-flies/Content?oid=2132188 "Parasitic castration is the strategy, by a parasite, of blocking reproduction by its host, completely or in part, to its own benefit." Crab with egg sac of the parasitic barnacle Sacculina carcini. The parasite stops reproduction in its host, the crab, and stimulates the female crab to disperse parasite eggs with the same behavior that she would normally use for her own eggs. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_castration Mosquitoes are parasites, I guess, as are also Lamprey Eels. This could go on and on.......I'm getting hungry! Frank
The article about bot flies was quite interesting. A quote from it: In the world of Nature only the fittest survive; that's the way it has always been, and probably the way it will be until the fire goes out in our Sun. So goes Nature's circle of life, one part touches another part and the complexities of everything within the circle becomes intricately entwined, and out of it all comes the final message to we humans: * Be careful what you do * Take care of the air, or you will die * Take care of the soil, or you will die * Take care of the water, or you will die Fascinating.