Prehistoric puma feces reveals oldest parasite DNA ever recorded

The oldest parasite DNA ever recorded has been found in the ancient, desiccated feces of a puma

Date: August 27, 2019

Source: Cambridge University Press

A team of Argentinian scientists from the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) made the discovery after studying a coprolite taken from a rock-shelter in the country's mountainous Catamarca Province, where the remains of now extinct megafauna have previously been recovered in stratigraphic excavations.

Radiocarbon dating revealed that the coprolite and thus the parasitic roundworm eggs preserved inside dated back to between 16,570 and 17,000 years ago, towards the end of the last Ice Age.

At that time, the area around the shelter at Peñas de las Trampas in the southern Andean Puna was thought to have been wetter than today, making it a suitable habitat for megafauna like giant ground sloths, and also smaller herbivores like American horses and South American camelids which the pumas may have preyed on.

Ancient mitochondrial DNA analysis was used to confirm the coprolite came from a Puma (Puma concolor) and that the eggs belonged to Toxascaris leonina, a species of roundworm still commonly found in the digestive systems of modern day cats, dogs and foxes.

The study, published in the journal Parasitology, explains that the extremely dry, cold and salty conditions which took hold at the Peñas de las Trampas site since the onset of the Holocene would have helped to reduce the breakdown of the DNA, allowing it to be preserved.

Read on 

Genome published of the small hive beetle, a major honey bee parasite

One of only seven beetle genomes published

Date:  December 20, 2018

Source:  US Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service

Beekeepers and researchers will welcome the unveiling of the small hive beetle's genome by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and their colleagues. The small hive beetle (SHB) is a major parasite problem of honey bees for which there are few effective treatments.

The SHB (Aethina tumida Murray) genome -- a genome is the sum total of all an organism's DNA; a gene codes for a single protein to be built -- is available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/annotation_euk/Aethina_tumida/100 and was recently published in GigaScience.

This information will provide crucial keys that should lead to better, more targeted SHB control methods, including insecticidal treatments and possibly even genetic/breeding solutions.

Continued  

Parasite living inside fish eyeball controls its behaviour

4 May 2017
 

By Elizabeth Preston

A common parasite that lives in fish eyeballs seems to be a driver behind the fish’s behaviour, pulling the strings from inside its eyes.

When the parasite is young, it helps its host stay safe from predators. But once the parasite matures, it does everything it can to get that fish eaten by a bird and so continue its life cycle.

The eye fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum has a life cycle that takes place in three different types of animal. First, parasites mate in a bird’s digestive tract, shedding their eggs in its faeces. The eggs hatch in the water into larvae that seek out freshwater snails to infect. They grow and multiply inside the snails before being released into the water, ready to track down their next host, fish. The parasites then penetrate the skin of fish, and travel to the lens of the eye to hide out and grow. The fish then get eaten by a bird – and the cycle starts again.

Many parasites can change an animal’s behaviour to fit their own needs. Mice infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, for example, lose their fear of cats – the animal the parasite needs to reproduce inside.

In a 2015 study, Mikhail Gopko at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow and his colleagues showed that fish infected with immature fluke larvae swam less actively than usual – making themselves less visible to predators – and were harder to catch with a net than uninfected controls.

Now, the same team has tested rainbow trout harbouring mature eye flukes – parasites ready to reproduce inside their bird hosts. The team found that these trout swam more actively than uninfected controls and stayed closer to the water’s surface.

Both traits should make fish more conspicuous to birds. When the researchers simulated a bird attack by making a shadow swoop over the tank, the fish froze – but infected fish resumed swimming sooner than uninfected ones.
 

Continued

Yellowstone fish deaths: 183 miles of river closed to halt spread of parasite

Ban on all fishing, rafting and other river activities in the US river will remain until fish stop dying, say officials

Associated Press

Sunday 21 August 201602.51 BST

Closures on a 183-mile stretch of the Yellowstone river and hundreds of miles of other waterways could continue for months while biologists try to prevent the spread of a parasite believed to have killed tens of thousands of fish.

The closures will remain until the waterways improve and fish stop dying, according to officials from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The ban includes all fishing, rafting and other river activities.

Officials are now worried the fish kill could have a lasting impact on the Yellowstone’s reputation as a world-class trout fishery that draws visitors from around the world. 

The closures extend to hundreds of miles of waterways that feed into the Yellowstone, including the Boulder, Shields and Stillwater rivers. 

No dead fish were found inside Yellowstone National Park, where a celebration of the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary is set for next week and no closures were planned there.

Continued  

Bees infected with common gut parasite work less and die younger, finds study

Finding by Queensland researchers is significant for humans, given about a quarter of food production depends on honey bee pollination

Australian Associated Press

Tuesday 14 July 2015 01.41 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 14 July 201502.27 BST

Bees infected with a common gut parasite work less, die younger and carry much less pollen than healthy bees, Queensland researchers have found.

The finding is significant for humans, given about a quarter of food production depends on honey bee pollination.

James Cook University researchers made the discovery after gluing tiny transmitters to the backs of 960 bees and then infecting half with a low dose of nosema spores, a gut parasite common among the adult insects.

“No one had looked at bees at this level before, to see what individual bees do when they are sick,” lead researcher Dr Lori Lach said.

The tagged bees were observed visiting hives and artificial flowers. Researchers found the bees infected with the gut parasite were 4.3 times less likely to be carrying pollen than uninfected bees, and carried less pollen when they were. They also found the sick insects started working later, stopped working sooner and died younger.

Lach said the research was vital to understanding how bees were affected by non-lethal stressors.

The nosema apis parasite was long thought to be benign compared with other parasites and pathogens that infect honey bees, and it was the first time its effect on bee behaviour had been examined, she said.

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Lethal Parasite Originated From Pond Scum

May 12, 2014

University of British Columbia

A genomic investigation by University of British Columbia researchers has revealed that a lethal parasite infecting a wide range of insects actually originated from pond scum, but has completely shed its green past on its evolutionary journey.

A team led by UBC Botany Prof. Patrick Keeling sequenced the genome of Helicosporidium – an intracellular parasite that can kill juvenile blackflies, caterpillars, beetles and mosquitoes – and found it evolved from algae like another notorious pathogen: malaria.

Keeling and colleagues had previously reported that malaria shared a common evolutionary lineage with the algae responsible for toxic red tides. Their latest study, published today in the online journal PLOS Genetics, shows that Helicosporidium evolved from green alga but, unlike malaria, preserved virtually all its genes except those required for photosynthesis.

“Both malaria and Helicosporidium started out as alga and ended up as intracellular parasites preying on animals, but they have done it in very different ways,” says Keeling, director of the Centre for Microbial Diversity and Evolution at UBC and a Senior Fellow of Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

“Malaria drastically reduced its genome and became very dependent on its host for nutrients. Helicosporidium, on the other hand, lost almost nothing except those genes required for photosynthesis, which it no longer needs as a parasite.

Read more at

Meet Phronima, The Barrel-Riding Parasite That Inspired The Movie Alien (Op-Ed)

By Katie O'Dwyer, University of Otago | February 03, 2014 11:10pm ET

This article was originally published at The Conversation.The publication contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Meet a parasite that can create its own mobile nursery for its young, a parasite that is thought to be the inspiration behind the chest-bursting xenomorph in the film Alien. Meet Phronima, the pram-pushing, barrel-riding parasite.

These tiny creatures are found throughout the world’s oceans, except polar regions, swimming in open water. This sets them apart from their relatives, crabs for example, which typically stick to the safe confines of the seabed. Phronima has broken free of the sea floor, taking advantage of another sea creature, the salp, to survive in the open water.

Read on

Fast moving snails spread deadly dog disease across UK

Despite their lethargic reputations, snails can travel at a relatively speedy one metre per hour, say researchers.

By attaching multicoloured LED lights, the scientists were able to track their movements over a 24-hour period.

The gastropods were fast enough to explore the length of an average UK garden in a single night.

But scientists are worried that the fast-moving snails are spreading a parasite that is deadly for dogs.

Over the past few years the wet summers enjoyed across the UK have proved the ideal breeding grounds for snails.

“They are not just lettuce munchers, they are carriers of parasites that can kill your dogs,” Dr Dave Hodgson University of Exeter

According to the Royal Horticultural Society, their numbers increasedby 50% last year.

As well as being a pest for gardeners, snails can also spread a parasite called Angiostrongylus vasorum.

This lungworm is a particular threat to dogs, which can become infected by accidentally eating slugs or snails which they come across in the garden or on dog toys.

Read on

Parasite Causes Mice to Permanently not Fear Cats

Douglas Main, Staff Writer

Date: 05 April 2013 Time: 04:48 PM ET

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii is a crazy protozoa that lives in most warm-blooded animals but that prefers to live in cats, where it can sexually reproduce.

To return to its feline haunts, it can manipulate the behavior of mice and other animals it infects. It can, for example, make rats unafraid — even sexually attracted — to the smell of cat urine. (You can't make this stuff up.)

"To complete the Toxo lifecycle, an infected animal has to be eaten by a cat," writes researcher Michael Eisen on his blog. "This creates a conflict of interest between Toxo, who wants its host to be eaten by a cat, and the host, who would rather NOT be eaten by a cat." (Indeed—the age old dilemma.)

But how does it accomplish this nefarious mind control? Nobody knows exactly, but  Eisen's student Wendy Ingram is determined to find out. She just completed a new study, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, which found that even an attenuated, or weakened, form of the parasite caused mice to permanently not fear mice, presumably becoming aroused forevermore by even the slightest whiff of cat piss. "This would seem to refute – or at least make less likely – models in which the behavior effects is the result of direct physical action of parasites on specific parts of the brain," Eisen writes of the finding. 

All of this got me musing: Is it possible that Toxoplasma (which infects about one-third of people, by some estimates) is the reason that people loves cats so much? Are all cat-lovers parasite-addled sickos? Could it make us WANT TO BE EATEN by cats? 

Just some food for thought.

http://www.livescience.com/28497-parasite-causes-mice-to-not-fear-cats.html

Common Parasite May Trigger Suicide Attempts: Inflammation from T. Gondii Produces Brain-Damaging Metabolites

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2012) — A parasite thought to be harmless and found in many people may actually be causing subtle changes in the brain, leading to suicide attempts.

New research appearing in the August issue of The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry adds to the growing work linking an infection caused by the Toxoplasma gondiiparasite to suicide attempts. Michigan State University's Lena Brundin was one of the lead researchers on the team.

About 10-20 percent of people in the United States have Toxoplasma gondii, or T. gondii, in their bodies, but in most it was thought to lie dormant, said Brundin, an associate professor of experimental psychiatry in MSU's College of Human Medicine. In fact, it appears the parasite can cause inflammation over time, which produces harmful metabolites that can damage brain cells.

"Previous research has found signs of inflammation in the brains of suicide victims and people battling depression, and there also are previous reports linking Toxoplasma gondii to suicide attempts," she said. "In our study we found that if you are positive for the parasite, you are seven times more likely to attempt suicide."

The work by Brundin and colleagues is the first to measure scores on a suicide assessment scale from people infected with the parasite, some of whom had attempted suicide.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120816170400.htm

Doctor Pulls 5 Inches Live Worm From Man's Eye

The patient suffered pain for more than two weeks before he decided to go to the doctor because of eye irritation. He did not expect to experience a scene from a horror movie - from his eye was removed live worm 5 inches (13cm) long!


When Dr V. Seetharaman examined 75-year-old patient P.K. Krishnamurthy at Mumbai's Fortis Hospital this week, the eye expert was shocked by the highly unusual sight of the writhing parasite and had to operate speedily to remove it before serious damage was caused. Seetharman stated afterwards that: “It was wriggling there under the conjunctiva. It was the first time in my career of 30 years that I had seen such a case.”


The eye specialist removed the parasite in a 15-minute operation, making a small incision in the conjunctiva (the thin membrane around the eye) while Saraswati, the patient’s wife, looked on in horror.

According to doctor, there was a possibility that the worm, before it entered the bloodstream and to the eye, enters through a cut in the patient's foot or from eating raw or poorly cooked food.

The 5 inch long parasitic worm was alive for 30 minutes following the surgery, and was sent to the hospital’s microbiologists for identification.


Continued:  http://www.incredipedia.info/2012/07/doctor-pulls-5-inches-live-worm-from.html

Giant Alien Snails Attack Miami, Though They're Not in Much of a Rush

MIAMI—Floridians have grown accustomed to invasions of exotic creatures, like the Burmese pythons slithering throughout the Everglades. But residents here are especially grossed out by the latest arrivals: giant African land snails that grow as long as eight inches, chew through plants, plaster and stucco, and sometimes carry a parasite that can infect humans with a nonlethal strain of meningitis.

The gastropods are among the most dangerous in the world, agriculture officials say. They each have male and female reproductive organs and can lay 1,200 eggs a year, allowing them to proliferate rapidly. Thousands of them have infested at least five separate neighborhoods in the Miami area.

Homeowners who discover the creatures in their yards often find them disgusting. The snails' engorged bodies extend far from their shells, and they eat so ravenously that they leave trails of excrement on walls and the ground.

Read on...
By ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES

Worms With Teeth Attack Aussie Couple

Couple Being Eaten Alive By Parasites, But Now Recovering
An Australian couple is recovering after discovering they were being eaten alive by tiny worms with teeth.

The duo discovered the culprits after weeks of chronic illness, the Herald Sun reported.

They first became ill after cooking fish they had caught while camping in Western Australia, and ingesting the gnathostomiasis larvae.

It is the first time humans have been infected by the parasite in Australia.

The worms are less than 1 inch long, have sharp teeth and can work their way around the body until it dies or is killed by the immune system.

"They move under the skin and cause itchy lumps that can make you feel sick and it can be very hard to diagnose," Dr. Andrew Fuller told the Herald Sun. "They eat your tissues."

The 52-year-old man told doctors he could even feel movement under his skin.

A course of antibiotics killed the parasite and the couple have recovered.

http://www.wapt.com/r/28460768/detail.html

Tick voted the Netherlands' most hated creature

Published on 24 April 2011 - 10:14am

The humble tick has been voted the most hated creature in the Netherlands. The insect’s fearsome reputation as a bloodsucker and spreader of disease earned it almost 20 percent of all votes cast by the listeners of Dutch radio show Vroege Vogels [Early Birds].

The popular nature programme has produced a Top 50 of most hated creatures based on its listeners’ votes. Over 48,000 votes were cast during a two-month period, 9,457 of them for the tick. The insect has attracted considerable media coverage in recent years as a carrier of Lyme disease, a potentially debilitating condition with a wide range of symptoms.

The radio show announced the full Top 50 in its Easter Sunday broadcast. Invertebrates feature heavily on the list. The Top 50 contains 9 mammals and 11 birds but the rest is made up of insects, spiders, mites and molluscs.

The programme makers promise to highlight the more positive and useful aspects of the unpopular creatures, as well as their less loveable characteristics. They will also answer the much-asked question of why it wasn’t possible to vote for humans in the survey.

http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/tick-voted-netherlands%E2%80%99-most-hated-creature

Parasite Caused Frogs With Too Many Legs, Scientist Says

LOS LUNAS, N.M. -- Frogs in a Los Lunas pond are surfacing with either too many legs or too few, and one university researcher said he’s pinpointed the cause.


Worried viewers called Target 7 to find out if the water was contaminated and if it was harmful to humans.

Los Lunas officials didn’t know about the frogs until they were contacted by Target 7. Immediately, Parks and Recreation Director Michael Jaramillio closed off the pond and had the water tested.


Target 7 also conducted water tests, and reporter Anna Velasquez broke out in rashes after collecting samples.

Mason Ryan is an amphibian expert at the University of New Mexico who is investigating the frog deformities.

“In the big picture of the number of ponds and the number of frog species we have in this country, it's kind of a relatively rare event,” Ryan said.

Ryan said this is New Mexico’s first known case of bullfrog deformities. Out of the 178 frogs collected, he said 80 percent were deformed and all were juveniles.

“As with most stories in biology, it's a complex story with multiple things happening to cause this,” Ryan said.

Predators are responsible for the frogs that are missing legs, and a parasite called trematode caused three or more legs in some frogs, Ryan said.

“They have a complex life cycle where they go through a bird, into a snail, and they live in the water and then they enter the developing tadpole,” Ryan said.

Ryan said he believes something must have happened in the pond to trigger a spike in the parasite’s population.

“Our nitrogen level may have been high in the pond some time last year due to possibly and overspill of fertilizer,” Jaramillo said.


Jaramillo admits that a groundskeeper fertilized the grass around the pond and accidentally spilled some into the water.

“How much of it? They're thinking a couple pounds at the most, it wasn't like it was intentionally put in there,” Jaramillo said.

The amount of fertilizer was not enough to kill off the pond’s fish or other organisms, but may have been enough to cause the frogs’ deformities.

Gorillas may be key to malaria mystery

2010/10/01

MALARIA appears to have jumped to humans from gorillas, and the parasite may have spread globally from a single gorilla to a single human, researchers report.

DNA from the droppings of nearly 3000 apes – gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos – shows the strain of malaria parasite most common in humans is virtually identical to one of many strains that infects gorillas.

Beatrice Hahn, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues used ape droppings collected to study the origins of the Aids virus for their study, published in the journal Nature.

Hahn’s team looked for DNA from malaria parasites, including the Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes most human cases.

“Wild apes, in particular the common chimps and the western gorillas, are naturally infected with at least eight or nine different Plasmodium species,” Hahn said. For years chimps were the chief suspects. But Hahn’s data shows only gorillas are infected by a Plasmodium species virtually identical on the genetic level to the type that infects humans. The findings could have implications for efforts to get rid of malaria, said Dr Larry Slutsker, who heads the malaria programme at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“If we were trying to rid the planet of every last parasite and there was a reservoir in western gorillas, that would have implications for eradication. I don’t think we are there, obviously,” he said. — BY MAGGIE FOX Reuters

http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=437111
(Submitted by Chad Arment)

Girl vomited two-metre parasitic worm, archives reveal

Medic's account is one of more than 1,000 Royal Navy journals made accessible to the public from today

The Guardian, Thursday 30 September 2010

A 12-year-old girl required medical treatment after vomiting a 220cm-long worm as she sailed to a new life in Canada in the 19th century, documents revealed today.

Ellen McCarthy was a passenger on board the Elizabeth ship taking emigrants from Cork in Ireland to Quebec when she fell ill, expelling three worms in total.

Her unusual case was described by the ship's surgeon, P Power, in June 1825. The medic's account is one of more than 1,000 Royal Navy medical officer journals made accessible to the public after a two-year cataloguing project at the National Archives in Kew.

Power's notes state: "Complained yesterday evening of pain in the bottom of the belly increased on pressure, abdomen hard and swollen, picks her nose, starts in her sleep, bowels constipated, pyrexia, tongue foul, pulse quick, skin hot, great thirst. Her mother brought me a lumbricus [worm] this morning 87in long which the patient vomited."

The naval surgeon treated the girl with a range of syrups and injections including barley water and brandy punch. But he singled out oil of "terebouth" (thought to refer to the turpentine tree) for having the greatest effect. Two days later, on 15 June, she was "very ill and feverish" and Power gave her a laxative which he said prompted the patient to pass a "great quantity of slimey matter".

Her condition gradually improved in a "pleasing" manner and on 29 June, Power stated she was "convalescent".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/30/girl-vomited-two-metre-parasitic-worm
(Submitted by Tim Chapman)

After the girl's nostril leech: More nasty animals found in the body

RIGHT: A hookworm: They infect 600 million people worldwide

Ted Thornhill - 16th April, 2010

You've seen the horror that is the leech named T Rex who gets into girls' nostrils. Now prepare to see even more nasty things that live inside humans...

Hookworm
An infestation of hookworm can cause nasty blisters and lesions on the skin. You might also get a fever and vomit a lot. It's really not pleasant - and they infect over 500 million people a year.

Candiru
The candiru – or toothpick fish – is a native to the Amazon River in Brazil and has a vicious way of feeding. Attracted by chemicals emitted from the gills of fish it preys upon, the candiru – which can grow to 15cm – sneaks into the gills and uses two spikes in its head to hook itself in place. Then it sucks the blood of its victim. It poses little danger to humans – unless you pee in the river. The candiru is thought to be attracted to our urine and there was a case in 1997 when someone got one of these spiky beasts lodged somewhere rather sensitive...


Human Botfly
These nasty little critters capture mosquitoes, drop their eggs on them, then let the mozzies go to work. When they bite, the eggs go in through the hole and grow under the skin – for eight weeks. Then the 2cm long larva fall out and hatch into botflies.

See the video of a larva being removed from someone's back. If you can stomach it!


Whipworm
These can grow to 31cm in length – in your stomach! And sometimes they try to get out through your nose or mouth. Infection is often caused by eating beans or rice containing eggs, or through soil contaminated with human feces.

The fish tapeworm
Like something out of a horror film – and a particularly horrific horror film at that – the fish tapeworm can grow to 30 feet. Inside you. You can be infected by eating raw or undercooked fish – and the tapeworm can be found wherever bears or other fish-eating mammals, including humans, defecate. You'll know you've got one because you'll be constantly hungry, as the tapeworm is eating all the food!

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/822082-after-the-girls-nostril-leech-more-nasty-animals-found-in-the-body

Hong Kong dieters warned over swallowing parasitic worms

Dieters in Hong Kong have been warned by government doctors that they may be risking their lives by swallowing parasitic worms that can grow up to 15 inches long.

Published: 11:41AM GMT 09 Feb 2010

The city's department of health said that Chinese-language websites have been offering products containing potentially fatal parasites as a means of losing weight quickly without eating less.

The weight loss remedies use the eggs of Ascaris worms – giant intestinal roundworms which grow up to 15in in length in a host's intestine and lay up to 200,000 more eggs a day inside the body.

A spokesman for Hong Kong's department of health said swallowing the parasites could cause abdominal pain and distension, vomiting, diarrhoea and malnutrition.

"Parasite infestation may also be fatal if serious complications such as intestinal, biliary tract or pancreatic duct obstruction arise," the spokesman said. "The worms may even invade such organs as the lungs.

"The infestation can be treated with medication that kills the parasite. The worms may require surgical removal if there are obstructions."

He urged people to consult doctors before dieting and said the only healthy and effective means of weight loss was to eat less and take regular exercise.

Dieting is big business in Hong Kong where obesity levels have soared because of sedentary lifestyles, fast food diets and long office hours in the workaholic city of 7 million.

Clinics and websites in the former British colony offer a bizarre variety of questionable weight loss methods including sweat-inducing body suits, fat-dissolving injections and even flammable paraffin wraps to literally burn off belly fat.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7195990/Hong-Kong-dieters-warned-over-swallowing-parasitic-worms.html

This sea parasite really does suck

A PARASITE that slowly kills fish be clinging to their bodies and sucking their blood has been found in the English Channel for the first time. The isopod attaches itself, becomes part of the fish's body, and uses its host's nutrients to survive. Scientists say global warming is partly responsible for the arrival of the woodlouse-like isopod which is normally found in the Med.

Metro Ireland, Monday 12 October 2009, p9.