A post in a nightmare fueled lifestyle in a nightmarish hell scape…or a nice story of parasitic nematodes find in fishes at hydrothermal vents over at Parasite of the Day
To land-dwelling humans, deep sea hydrothermal vents would seem like a vision of hell, amidst the crushing darkness you have plumes of superheated water, mixed with noxious sulfides, erupting from fissures on the seafloor. But for many deep sea animals, this “hell” is in fact a vibrant oasis in the middle of the abyss. This lively habitat is made possible thanks to bacteria that are able to extract energy from the sulphurous waters billowing from those vents. In the absence of sunlight, these chemoautotrophs form the foundation of the food chain. Some tube worms have been able to co-opt the power of these bacteria by housing the microbes in their gills, enabling them to grow to enormous sizes. Their tubes form dense, forest-like habitats for many other animals including other polychaete worms, fishes, crustaceans, and molluscs. This sets the stage for all kinds of complex ecological interactions, and that includes parasitism.
https://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2024/02/ascarophis-globuligera.html
