| Botnst |
06-01-2006 11:22 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by peragro
I'm here. Hoping to be here in June as well...
Bot,
What's the parasite that piggybacks on mosquito bites and eggs hatch while the mosquito is biting and infest the host? It was a dinner topic tonight and I can't remember one that does that. Bot flies were also a topic of discussion... so your post was very apropos.
|
I gave that some thought and I can't be sure because of the term, "piggyback,"
For example, malaria is a disease caused by a multicellular organism that passes some of its lifecycle in the mosquitoes gut and another part of the lifecycle in the host. When the skeeter bites it backflushes with saliva that is anticoagulant. The saliva also carries the disease. Once it gets into the host blood stream it infects red blood cells and on reaching maturity, bursts the RBC releasing progeny into the blood stream to infect more RBC's. Incidentally, this periodicity is what causes the periodicity in fever, sweating and other symptoms of malaria infection. As the disease increases in infection rate among RBC's it kills them periodically and at an increasing population size. This periodic manifestation may kill the host.
But the mosquito is vector to many diseases of man and animal including multicellular organisms, single-celled organisms and viruses. There are many, many diseases carried by mosquitoes that infect other mammals and also other animals like reptiles, amphibians, and birds. All it takes is a mutation or two to jump from animal to man.
B |
