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Which parasite would you say is the scariest? Like, which one would you suggest using as inspiration if someone wanted to make a horror movie that will DEFINITELY give people nightmares? If some horrible person said they were going to afflict one upon you, which one would have you screaming the loudest from fear?
Forrest: "Kids and dogs and cats are the absolute worst because they can give you parasites!" Also Forrest: "This parasite is *ADORABLE!* I love these little guys!"
The urge to think they're so cute and smart for causing such severe disease is so strong. Like, it's just a little guy who tried his best to evolve to evade your immune system and he did such a good job at it!! - a microbiologist The worms are particularly horrifying though, if I can see it moving without a microscope, I don't want to have eyes 🧑🦯
@@Beth-ux6jnThey are amazing things in their own right, in terms of ingenious evolutionary strategies. They're also just rather revolting and bad for us at the same time.
unless you're a dung beetle. Some species thereof go their whole life cycle, from egg to egg-laying consuming nothing but faeces. (From Wikipedia) "Dung beetles do not necessarily have to eat or drink anything else, because the dung provides all the necessary nutrients." This sounds like a really shitty deal. And a grim existence
My wife has been infested with a parasite twice. This last time was shortly after we moved to cape canaveral. The doctors said there was nothing we could do and we just had to wait for it to incubate and exit on its own. So 9 months later the doctor removes it and hands it to me like I'm supposed to keep it. Apparently by law I have to feed it and shelter it for like 18 years. Anyway we named her Charlotte and she's celebrating her 1st birthday this month.
I had two soldiers (Army medic) who contracted cutaneous Leishmaniasis in the central American jungle, so I became really familiar with it. Cut forwards to a few years later when someone came into the facility I was working in with an open lesion that wouldn't heal and when I was told the individual had been in warm countries with endemic sandflies I was like "Oh! That's Leishmaniasis!" The Nursing staff basically told me off (but you know in a kind 'you don't know medicine yet' sort of way) for thinking Zebras instead of Horses. Yeah after the blood results came back in they sat me down and where like "How on earth did you know that it was this rare tropical parasite that doesn't exist in this country?"
@isaiahlawson3034 yeah, best thing is it doesn't show up until months later. One of the guys who had it didn't come to me until 3 months after we came back (we'd actually come back, recuperated, and deployed on another overseas exercise). The first guy had already been diagnosed with leish, and everyone was sort of jokingly teasing him that the open sore he had was the obvious, so he stopped me, showed me the sore and was like "doc tell them I don't have leishmaniasis!" Cue the obvious "uh maybe we should sit down and talk about this in private." The good news is it isn't just central America. Its endemic all over North and Central Africa, South America, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. There are even cases of it appearing in Texas. So you don't have to worry about being deployed to Panama or anything like that.
@@isaiahlawson3034 If you are serving in the forces my advice (and the advice any medic should give you) is: Avoid wearing shorts or sandals. Long trousers and tuck them into your boots. Try to avoid sleeping on the ground; where possible deploy either a camp cot or hammock for sleeping, sandflies unlike mosquitos can get through nets but they also can't jump more than 1m off the ground.
Absolutely this. Tuck your boots. DON'T use the pretty-pinch elastic blousers to make it "look" like they're tucked. Quick way to get ticks, scabies, any number of parasitic animals that wait in grasses and shrubs.@@dernwine
I HAD SCABIES FOR NINE MONTHS MY SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL NINE DAMN MONTHS IT ITCHED WORSE THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE AND IT WAS HORRID AND NO ONE CAUGHT IT EVEN THOUGH I WENT TO A DERMATOLOGIST UNTIL MY YOUNGER BROTHER WENT TO HIS PEDIATRICIAN WHEN I SPREAD IT TO HIM and then i saw a picture of them in my zoology professor's book my freshman year of my first associate's degree and that's when i fell in love with ecology it was awful it changed my life for the better, because honestly without scabies and the interest in ecology and zoology it gave me, I might still be a young earth creationist.
Wow! I’m sorry that happened but also, congrats on escaping YEC! I had it when I was really young but it went away fast. My peds was also a researcher at Stanford so he was extremely quick to notice that sort of thing. But also I didn’t get free of YEC until many years later so I’m not sure I got the better deal. 😂
New plan, infest all the YECcels with scabies until they explain how Noah carried them on his ark. And why god wanted them to keep on existing. Sadism? It’s like they are hyding the truth somewhere.
My doctor said i have scabies but i think its my eczema that i had since i was a child because no one in my whole household has/had itching but me so i don't think its scabies
I saw the video title in my notifications and I was like, “Who would even think to rank these!?” Then I saw it Forrest and I was like “Yeah, that makes sense.” Creative idea Mr. Valkai
My favorite are those isopods that infest a fish's mouth , eat its tongue, Replace its tongue, And then get a share of everything that fish eats. The fish is clueless how awful it looks to the outside world. Parasites are a metaphor for religion.
The schistosoma slander! They're not boring at all! They're the only flatworms that are dioecious and the male essentially envelopes the female and feeds her some of the blood he gets from the host. And they spend their whole adult lives like this. Also in German they're called "Pärchenegel" which basically means "couple/pair leech", which I think is cute. Also apparently schistosomiasis is the second-most socioeconomically devastating parasitic disease according to the WHO, only beaten by Malaria
The parasites that make me the most uncomfortable are the ones that eat and replace the tongue so they can steal food from you and you starve to death. I forgot what they are called, but they can infect some saltwater fish.
Youre thinking of the "tongue eating louse" which is a type of isopod. Shockingly enough, unless a fish gets parasitized by more than one, the fish usually goes on to live a dairly normal life and the isopod just functions like a new tongue. Nature really leaves no niche unfilled. Oh also, they only go after fish so youre safe but there is a movie called "The Bay" where a small oceanside town gets attacked by mutated versions of these guys which eat people so maybe your brain mixed the two ideas together?
Please talk about parasitic barnacles. They’re pretty much root networks of flesh that branch inside crabs and sea stars and castrate them, growing massive egg sacs where their host’s reproductive organs were.
When I was 15 taking ecology we studied parasites and I was for real traumatized. I had suppressed the memory for 20 years but you just helped me face my past issues. Idk how I feel right now… so I just became a member of the channel even though you said not to.
I’m with you 100% on this one, we studied tapeworms in ‘A’ level biology and I was traumatised for years. That was the best part of 50 years ago, and Forrest has just brought it right back.
My favorite are those isopods that infest a fish's mouth , eat its tongue, Replace its tongue, And then get a share of everything that fish eats. The fish is clueless how awful it looks to the outside world. Parasites are a metaphor for religion.
My favorite character trait of the Doctor from Doctor Who is how they respond to dangerous "monsters-of-the-week" with a sense of wonder and curiosity and just marvel at the beauty of terrifying things. Dude you have that in spades. I think that's what makes you so endearing.
0:00 Halloween 0:16 Giardia lamblia (also Giardia duodenalis), poopy suction cups 1:10 Tapeworms (Cestoda, Taenia saginata), scolex... you can't just pull it out 3:16 Ticks (Ixodes scapularis), serrated mouth = decapitation 4:20 Trichinella spiralis, insist your pork is cooked to avoid encysting 5:34 Plasmodium falciparum, a dissertation on malaria 8:18 Sarcoptes scabiei, you can't scratch out this infestation 9:31 Botflies (Dermatobia hominis), don't look up squirrels! 11:19 Schistosoma mansoni, wear water shoes 11:38 Fleas (Pulex irritans), they carried THAT plague 13:06 Wuchereria bancrofti, elephantiasis can affect EVERY part of the body... 13:56 Loa loa, an AWESOME Halloween body mod 14:37 Onchocerca volvulus, the visceral horror of the one above 14:59 Enterobius vermicularis, anal depositors enlisting the help of children 16:10 Entamoeba histolytica, yet another poopy infection 16:56 Dracunculus medinensis, THANK YOU PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER! 18:13 Toxocara (Toxocara canis), felis is the better name 20:39 Leishmania (Leishmania tropica), this is the first time I saw Google enter safe search mode 22:22 Demodex folliculorum, you have them and will never know 23:55 Brilliant 25:04 ANTEATERS!!! I just used Google and it was suspiciously able to guess 1st result what I was typing while trying to spell these names. Anyway, my favorite not mentioned is Dicrocoelium dendriticum. They get ejected in animal poop, eaten by snails, ejected in snail poop (slime), eaten by ants, take over the ant like a body suit, get eaten by a ruminant (usually cow), and make their home in the bile duct.
I once ha a friend living at my place for a few years. He left, because we had dispute. On his way out he said I was a tyrant in those years. I asked him how, if he could give me examples. He had just one thing to say: "I've learned to wash my hands after going to the toilet, because I knew that you think it's disgusting to not do so." Let's ignore that I never told him to do so, he decided himself to do it, and thus his definition of tyrant is somewhat questionable, because that's not the topic here. I'm really baffled that to some people washing your hands after the toilet is a strange concept. I didn't even know that he didn't do that before he lived at my place. The worst part is that he worked in gastronomy for years and afterwards as a cleaning specialist in a hospital (mostly doing surgical rooms). I also always had to do dishes a second time after he was done, because he was so bad at it. Some people are just disgusting. While I don't have any contact with him anymore, I really hope he changed to the better, because I've heard that he has a child now.
"you DO NOT WANT TO GET ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPOTTED FEVER" I can't agree more. I contracted RMSF in June after a tick bite while fishing. Was not actually diagnosed until after I was cured. If you get a tick bite and then a week or so later chills, fever, headaches, tell your doctor and implore him/her to administer the tetracycline that will kill the little bugs inside you (Rickettsia). By the time you get the red spots all over, you are NOT in good shape, and on the verge of severe damage and death. Those little red spots are your blood vessels bursting as the bug attacks the lining of your arteries.
I just ate, Forrest! I have a national certification in Food Safety for my job, and I had to learn so much about foodborne illnesses. The info about parasites you can get from improperly cooked or handled foods is seared into my brain for all time. I got to watch several videos of people getting parasites removed from their bodies. There was one where a lady was getting randomly dizzy, and it was a worm in her brain! I got to watch the worm be pulled out of her brain while it tried to wiggle away! It was so interesting and horrifying.
So, I don't have many as far as phobias, but parasites are the one. The idea of infestation will now be in my nightmares for a while. Thanks for that. Keep being fantastic.
As a parasite enthusiast I love your passion for these critters throughout the video! If anyone wants to learn more about parasites in our ecosystem there's a blog called Parasite of the Day that is all about them. Thank you for the cozy video Forrest
7:59 Paused to comment on the idea that parasites are really just doing what they do (I completely agree, they've just evolved to live that way and any visceral reaction humans have is an 'us' problem) before I noticed your little case of the 8 Kanto gym badges lmao that's so cool 😅
FWIW tapeworms are no small part of why sushi-grade fish has to be frozen (at least in north America) before consumption. Some purists dislike it but it does kill (some) parasites. With modern flash-freezing it probably does more to preserve quality (commercial fish is often frozen on the boat) than it does to diminish it anyways. Unless you were going to be eating it right off the fishhook.
I’ve watched too many seasons of Alone to be excited about eating raw Pacific salmon straight off the hook. Also, you can get trichinosis from beavers and it will frickin’ ruin your life!
Brain eating amoeba, absolutely terrifying. Something really visceral about a Parasite that doesn't just feed on your body but on your memories and mental faculties.
Pneumonic plague was so deadly and killed so quickly they used to say when you got "The Black Death" you would have Breakfast with your family and Dinner with your Ancestors . And what ? No Toxoplasmosis Gondii ?
My skin itched a bit, but overall, had a blast watching this. I used to have a severe case of vermiphobia, and legit for the longest time never was really able to learn about animals fully, as I was always on the lookout for worms, I cured myself of that like in 2019-2020, so seriously glad because worms are probably one of the most coolest, fascinating animals on earth.
This video not for the faint-hearted or the sensitive and certainly not for the hypochondriac!! I am none of these and I have 78 years of healthy life under my belt without those delightful little critters involving themselves with my person, at least, not in the medically negative sense. Great topic, Forrest, enjoyed it immensely. The wish of guests at a wedding that they hope the happy couple' s troubles will be "little" ones, takes on a whole new meaning!!
Best Halloween video ever, terrifies me to my core! Not just the parasites but also the fact that "some dude" is out there thinking they're cute and/or awesome. Thank you for once again provieng: real life is scarier than fiction...
About the tapeworms and that painting, 911 had an early episode in which a subplot was the firefighters/emt squad in the show responding to a call about a person in distress who was in that same position due to salmon sushi made from Pacific salmon. Another weird tidbit of info about tapeworms, the traditional cure for them in Sardinian folk medicine is a steam bath of milk and garlic under your head like you'd do with water and herbs to clear out excess mucus during a cold.
I started watching your videos as a way to understand within myself why religion mixed with science never made sense to me, but over several months I’ve dived deep into biology and am now enrolled to study it for collage in a new passion I’ve never felt before. Thank you for this channel, you are a gift
@@raya.p.l5919 A wild THEIST has appeared! Go! ATHEIST! Enemy THEIST used ❤JESUS POWER ❤ENERGY FIELD! No effect! ATHEIST used CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS! It's super effective! Enemy THEIST fainted! ATHEIST GAINED 42069 EXP. Points!
I survived amoeba hystolithica in Bolivia after 56 days of infection. I always thought that what was told to me when I got back to Rome, "You should be dead", was an exaggeration. I got shivers when you said down to 1%.
I did a parasitology module for my degree and fell in love with Trypanasoma cruzi that cause Chagas' disease. It's another one that can stay dormant 10 to 30 years after the initial infection and cause chronic heart disease and chronic constipation depending on where the trypanasomes end up. Ibalways remember seeing pictures of patient's hearts where the muscle wall was so thin you could see through it
18:00 the reduction is crazy, I did the math and this is around the percentage in 2021of the parasites original recorded amount in the 1980's 0.000429. That is 4.29*10^4%.
I don't know whether to be proud or disgusted, I recognized a good chunk of this list just by your images. As a vet tech, we are a sort of community educators on parasites. Your average unlicensed vet tech has more parasite education than your average human Dr. The veterinary community is expected to be responsible for educating society on parasites. I have actually seen a lot of the parasites I recognized under a microscope in real world conditions. I love your channel, and you.
Not related to most of your comment (altho, thank you and your people for educating the masses on parasites) but I don't think it's possible *not* to love Forrest! He's enthusiastic, super smart and extremely knowledgeable and that makes his teaching style really engaging and endearingly adorable! I'm so pleased to watch his videos, he pretty much always makes me smile. He reminds me of my secondary school Biology teacher (who sadly died in his early 50s from throat cancer early in the academic year following my finishing high school and it was horrible) because he was similarly enthusiastic and knowledgeable and just super fun to learn from. It's nice to have someone like that to watch on here, just over a decade later. ❤ But yeah, Forrest, I love him too! 😻
21:17 I work with two researchers who are studying pharmaceutical interventions for Leishmania infections. It’s WAY under-studied, particularly because of its rarity, but we’ve had several visiting scholars from Iran and Egypt because people actually care about it there
I've had scabies twice. The first time was horrible, because it takes about a week before you notice. Any time after that, you notice within a day or two. The medicated bodywash we were given was formaldehyde based. Stings (and stinks), but kills them in 24 hours. Also had to basically boil our clothes and bed sheets. And now just the mention of them makes my skin crawl.
Before seeing the video, I'd like to nominate Babesia spp for S tier because it's a species that has sexual reproduction in invertebrates and asexual reproduction in vertebrates (ergo, it evolved to be a parasite of ticks and being parasites of vertebrates such as dogs or humans is a happy coincidence). I just think they are neat Edit: I'm glad he chose malaria for a similar reason. Also, I'd put trypanosoma in S tier because they have a fenomenal way of surviving inside it's host. Changing the proteins it has on the outside to evade immune response. And that also makes vaccines useless which is rare. Extra poikt because one of his species has venereal transmission between dromedaries (if memory serves correctly, trypanosoma cruzei)
This video kicks ass. I don't know why but I was so engaged for the WHOLE time. I looked up the stuff you said not to btw and it was gnarly yeah but also, WHAT a learning experience. I had no idea Guinea worms were going extinct because of water filtration! That's cool as hell! I'm having a great time learning about parasites :)
Lone Star Tick - their bite can trigger an immune reaction that has the potential to leave a person allergic to red meat. And these ticks have been spreading due to habitat loss.
Trichinellosis is very rare in the US since it has been virtually eliminated in the pork meat supply. The dozen or so cases that do occur come from eating undercooked bear meat.
I don't know anyone else that could make an entire video about different parasites and somehow make it one of the most interesting videos I've ever watched! 😂
I just learned about toxoplasmosis. A parasite that lives and reproduces inside cats. But it is difficult for the parasite living in the intestines to get from cat to cat. But cat poop is eaten by rats and mice, and the parasites change the brain function of the rats so that they get careless and agressive. That means the rats are more likely to be caught by cats, hopefully another cat than the one they are from.
Hey Forrest! I know you’re working hard on your thesis and you’re stretched thin with all the channels you’re on and the work you do, just known you’re awesome, loved, and appreciated, and it’s okay to take a break for some self care whenever you need.
Get a tick card for easy removal. It's like a cash card with 2 different-sized notches (depending on size of tick). You slide the notch right under their head from below and they lift out.
16:58 It was suggested that the _Aesculapian staff_ depicts the removal of a _Guinea worm_ by hygiene specialist Reiner Müller. But this hypothesis was rejected, because i.a. the worm wasn't known in ancient Greece, the removal process looks different & the size doesn't match.
this is so cool! I ended up doing my masters degree in biochemistry and structural biology, but parasites and parasitology are interesting! there is this finnish dude called Tuomas Aivelo who has a blog and a book about parasites and it is absolutely wild how diverse and complex parasites are.
This is an awesome list! I am a new medical lab tech, and I got to see giardia and trichomonas just this week. Awful for people, but fascinating to look at 😅
I want to thank you for this video, it gave me a lead on what has been causing me severe itching. I went to my dermatologist with information that the video pointed me at this issue. Anyway, thanks for the information.
I know this is a parasite tierlist, but amoebic dysentery is my all time favorite disease. just the idea that it's possible to shit so hard and for so long that your heart eventually gives out is really funny to me.
Forrest (paraphrased) on tapeworms “I have been showing that painting to my classes for years!” Also Forrest: “Not goona stop me from eating sushi though!” I imagine these lines are said closer together in your actual lectures ;)
I'm giving you a like because this is an important topic, but I usually watch your videos while eating and gut worms aren't super appetizing. Love your work Forrest!
Bedbugs. Its a i love learning about them mostly because my job puts me into contact with them regularly. I just find human specific parasites like that fascinating. They dont cause illness, and theyve specifically evolved around our sleeping habits by actively searching out posts inside our buildings as its likely a bed.
What about T. brucei? If you're going to mention plasmodium this one is the causative agent of African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness but also a competitor that produces and excretes a protein that counters severe malarial disease (in research mice) caused by P. berghei at the point of liver infection. Knowing the life cycles of species satisfies curiosity and occasionally leads to novel medical treatments or techniques. You could cover the origin story of the PCR technology and its many uses in molecular biology for how shear curiosity in weird species niches can lead to very unexpected breakthroughs. I loved this when it happened as a perfect example of why we need basic research that is not goal or product oriented. Knowledge is worthwhile for and isn't just a biologist wasting time in the field instead of holding a productive job.
