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Parasites: The Inside Story
An exciting look at the essential roles that parasites play in Earth's ecosystems
Parasites: The Inside Story looks at the weird and wonderful world of parasites, the most abundant form of life on Earth. Parasites come in all forms and sizes and inhabit every free-living organism. Parasitism is now, and always has been, a way to survive under changing environmental conditions. From arctic oceans to tropical forests, Scott Gardner, Judy Diamond, and Gabor Racz, investigate how parasites survive and evolve, and how they influence and provide stability to ecosystems.
Taking readers to the open ranges of Mongolia, the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, the Andes of Bolivia, and more, the authors examine the impact parasites have on humans and other animals. Using examples of parasites from throughout the tree of life, the authors describe parasite-host relationships as diverse as those between trematodes and snails and tapeworms and whales. They even consider the strange effects of thorny-headed worms on their hosts. Parasites offer clues to the evolutionary history of particular regions, and they can provide insights into the history of species interactions. Through parasites, biologists can weave together a global knowledge of the past to predict the challenges that we all face in the future.
Illustrating that parasites are so much more than creepy-crawlies, Entangled Lives gives up-to-date context for these critical members of the biological diversity of our planet.
Parasites: The Inside Story looks at the weird and wonderful world of parasites, the most abundant form of life on Earth. Parasites come in all forms and sizes and inhabit every free-living organism. Parasitism is now, and always has been, a way to survive under changing environmental conditions. From arctic oceans to tropical forests, Scott Gardner, Judy Diamond, and Gabor Racz, investigate how parasites survive and evolve, and how they influence and provide stability to ecosystems.
Taking readers to the open ranges of Mongolia, the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, the Andes of Bolivia, and more, the authors examine the impact parasites have on humans and other animals. Using examples of parasites from throughout the tree of life, the authors describe parasite-host relationships as diverse as those between trematodes and snails and tapeworms and whales. They even consider the strange effects of thorny-headed worms on their hosts. Parasites offer clues to the evolutionary history of particular regions, and they can provide insights into the history of species interactions. Through parasites, biologists can weave together a global knowledge of the past to predict the challenges that we all face in the future.
Illustrating that parasites are so much more than creepy-crawlies, Entangled Lives gives up-to-date context for these critical members of the biological diversity of our planet.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published November 29, 2022
19 people are currently reading
353 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
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March 2, 2023There is a pic of a buffalo with a tape worm escaping from his anus. There is another pic of a man holding a 35' tape worm that escaped from a buffalo's anus. Tape worms live in people too. Did you know that they have no set life span, they live as long as their host, so they are potentially immortal if they can keep on migrating host to host. The rest of the book was as horrible as that. Some of it was even more horrible.
But I enjoyed it. :-)
Review to come, lots more horrible things I've discovered that are horribly relevant. I was hesitant about eating sushi tonight after what I read, so I got a California roll.
But I enjoyed it. :-)
Review to come, lots more horrible things I've discovered that are horribly relevant. I was hesitant about eating sushi tonight after what I read, so I got a California roll.
May 10, 2023
Alternative title for this book: A Bunch of Random Anecdotes About Parasites, With a Few Rambling Third-Person Autobiographical Stories.
Look, I love parasites. I picked this book up thinking it would be an easy 5-star. A few pages in, I was hoping to give it 4 stars. After an hour, I figured I could give it 3. But, at the end of our time together (it only took 3 hours to read the entire book), I couldn't think of anyone I could recommend this to without major caveats. Which is embarrassing, because I actually DID recommend this to a bunch of people before reading it!
I won't bash on this thing too much, other than to say that it is mainly a collection of very superficial facts about parasites presented without much organization. There were some weird errors (such as claiming that all freshwater clams and mussels are parasitic as juveniles; only some are). Some points are repeated several times, as if the authors forgot they'd already talked about the subject 10 pages back. The autobiographical sections were written in awkward third person and were oddly out of place. The whole manuscript could have used a thorough editor. HOWEVER!
The photos and illustrations are excellent. I very much liked those.
I feel guilty rating this book so poorly, especially because I have a vested interest in the subject and the authors. However, I have to be honest: I'm not sure who would enjoy reading it. My recommendation: look at the very cool pictures, browse the text if any of the critters pique your interest, and leave it at that.
Look, I love parasites. I picked this book up thinking it would be an easy 5-star. A few pages in, I was hoping to give it 4 stars. After an hour, I figured I could give it 3. But, at the end of our time together (it only took 3 hours to read the entire book), I couldn't think of anyone I could recommend this to without major caveats. Which is embarrassing, because I actually DID recommend this to a bunch of people before reading it!
I won't bash on this thing too much, other than to say that it is mainly a collection of very superficial facts about parasites presented without much organization. There were some weird errors (such as claiming that all freshwater clams and mussels are parasitic as juveniles; only some are). Some points are repeated several times, as if the authors forgot they'd already talked about the subject 10 pages back. The autobiographical sections were written in awkward third person and were oddly out of place. The whole manuscript could have used a thorough editor. HOWEVER!
The photos and illustrations are excellent. I very much liked those.
I feel guilty rating this book so poorly, especially because I have a vested interest in the subject and the authors. However, I have to be honest: I'm not sure who would enjoy reading it. My recommendation: look at the very cool pictures, browse the text if any of the critters pique your interest, and leave it at that.
March 29, 2023
Really enjoyed the appendix, actually!!
June 12, 2023
It's interesting and with the title you clearly know what to expect from this read.
December 1, 2024
3.5 rounded down to 3.
Quite an interesting book on parasites, which in parts is quite well written, and in others a bit repetitive. I really missed having stronger threads and themes throughout the book and sometimes even within chapters. That being said, I learnt a lot about parasites from this book. The appendix is really cool!
Quite an interesting book on parasites, which in parts is quite well written, and in others a bit repetitive. I really missed having stronger threads and themes throughout the book and sometimes even within chapters. That being said, I learnt a lot about parasites from this book. The appendix is really cool!
February 21, 2023
Parasites: The Inside Story is a well-presented and fun introduction to the ecological and evolutionary aspects of parasites, though its brevity turns it into a medley that might leave readers wanting more. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2023...
October 3, 2022
Well organized, well researched.
This was an ARC.
This was an ARC.
July 7, 2023
Diversity in living systems
Parasites are usually described in negative terms, often as blood suckers, freeloaders, scroungers, flunkies, and deadbeats. In this book, the authors describe how parasites evolve by focusing on three kinds of parasites: the nematodes, the flat worms or platyhelminths, and the thorny-headed worms. These are endoparasites that live and thrive inside their hosts. The scientific data obtained with regards to parasite-host relationships between trematodes and snails, and tapeworms and whales makes an interesting read. Geohelminths manipulate and suppress their hosts' immune systems enabling them to reduce inflammation and decrease the likelihood that the host can expel them. It is also interesting to learn how species of parasitic helminth evolved independently to its specific lifestyle using a wide choice of hosts. Recently, scientists using an artificially streamlined version of Mycoplasma mycoides, a parasitic bacterium found in the guts of goats, synthetically eliminated 41 percent of its genes leaving all but the most essential sequences, which produced free-living cells without the need for a host tissue. Genetic drifting plays an important role in evolutionary mechanisms.
The authors suggest deforestation, loss of native habitats and global warming may destroy the ecosystem that includes parasites-host relationship. But no scientific data is presented to show global warming has a direct impact on this relationship. This is a short book of 224 pages, in many sections, the discussion is insufficient and not stimulating.
Parasites are usually described in negative terms, often as blood suckers, freeloaders, scroungers, flunkies, and deadbeats. In this book, the authors describe how parasites evolve by focusing on three kinds of parasites: the nematodes, the flat worms or platyhelminths, and the thorny-headed worms. These are endoparasites that live and thrive inside their hosts. The scientific data obtained with regards to parasite-host relationships between trematodes and snails, and tapeworms and whales makes an interesting read. Geohelminths manipulate and suppress their hosts' immune systems enabling them to reduce inflammation and decrease the likelihood that the host can expel them. It is also interesting to learn how species of parasitic helminth evolved independently to its specific lifestyle using a wide choice of hosts. Recently, scientists using an artificially streamlined version of Mycoplasma mycoides, a parasitic bacterium found in the guts of goats, synthetically eliminated 41 percent of its genes leaving all but the most essential sequences, which produced free-living cells without the need for a host tissue. Genetic drifting plays an important role in evolutionary mechanisms.
The authors suggest deforestation, loss of native habitats and global warming may destroy the ecosystem that includes parasites-host relationship. But no scientific data is presented to show global warming has a direct impact on this relationship. This is a short book of 224 pages, in many sections, the discussion is insufficient and not stimulating.
October 7, 2025
I’m not really sure why it was so hard for me to get though this book. Maybe because it was focused on the lifecycle and evolutionary history of the parasites while I was looking for more pathology or human impact. Other downsides included rambling anecdotes and an almost complete focus on tapeworms or occasionally other helminth parasites. I’d also love to see more than a brief mention on some of the big protozoan parasitic diseases (Trypanosomiasis, Giardiasis, Amoebiasis, Cryptosporidiosis, Babesiosis, etc). At least they did cover Malaria!
September 12, 2025
I found it interesting, and a little disturbing, that there are around 400 parasite species that infect humans, and that 70% of those only infect humans. I was surprised to learn that there are over 20,000 species of tapeworms. I found it interesting learning about different parasites, their transmission patterns, their lifecycles and what they do to their hosts. Overall it was an informative book with lots of facts and information about parasites.
March 30, 2024
As a naturalist, this book opened a whole new world for me.
Te ecological relations of organisms on earth are in good measure defined by the host-parasite relationship.
Great read, very up to date and a must read if you have interests in nature, health and history.
Te ecological relations of organisms on earth are in good measure defined by the host-parasite relationship.
Great read, very up to date and a must read if you have interests in nature, health and history.
March 8, 2023
Interesting and well structured. Blended parasitology with ecology and evolutionary biology. I felt it assumed a bit of background familiarity with the topic.
March 17, 2023
A little repetitious, but a really wide variety of perspectives on the life cycle of something I knew very little about
April 12, 2023
A little clunky and scattered but overall a fun recap of some parasites and their life cycle, as well as a focus on the big ecological/research picture overall.
August 14, 2023
Fascinating
August 27, 2023
A really great little book!
Read
November 3, 20233.25/5 - interesting, but a very "wide, not deep" glance at a fascinating topic.
February 12, 2024
This was so fun. Very sad about the grad student. Also I haven’t seen Alien (1979?) movie so spoilers! I really liked this.
November 25, 2023
The most entertaining and informative and enjoyable (especially if you are not eating anything) about parasites I’ve ever read!
May 7, 2023
7/10 stars
This was a somewhat interesting overview of, well, parasites as in worms and their weird strategies for infecting hosts and what a huge part of the ecosystem they make up. By a certain logic, everything's a parasite, like really what's the difference between a tapeworm and, I don't know, agriculture? It's just, of course, that we don't think of our bodies as "environments" and obviously parasites - as with us, monoculture farming, and "drugs" like Roundup - can cause problems within the body though then again it's in a parasite's interest to be somewhat unobtrusive since the less noticeable it is, the less the body will do about it. And, with some parasites, there becomes a strange relationship, neither mutual where both benefit nor commensal where one benefits and one isn't harmed, but one where we're feeding it and it sucks for us but it's also killing harmful bacteria on its own behalf that benefits us and, perhaps, across eons, it may sort of become us like kind of eventually not just become a mutual relationship but become part of our bodies. Strange isn't it but - and this wasn't really central to the book - this happens all the time, as in apparently our mitochondria used to be an independent bacteria that got roped into some kind of parasitic relationship which eventually became the motor of basically all animal life. Same with chlorophyll, which was at one point a something - bacteria? - that got pulled in by a nascent plant feeding off of it and eventually became all plant life. So for me this book, which is really an overview of gross worms and how they jump from intermediate hosts to final hosts (like with malaria and mosquitoes), instigated some thoughts more than was actually about those thoughts. And as an overview, it was fine and informative, but definitely more in the category of a broad list of parasites and how they operate while touching on some underlying evolutionary relationships rather than being about those relationships. And this isn't a criticism as the book never claimed to be a theoretical examination of parasites, evolution, and what constitutes a "body" and whether today's parasites will be tomorrow's cells but it made me wonder about that and was relatively short and if you like this kind of thing, it's worth adding to your shelf.
For more book, TV, and movie reviews, subscribe to my Substack The Media Report and follow me on Twitter and Instagram!
This was a somewhat interesting overview of, well, parasites as in worms and their weird strategies for infecting hosts and what a huge part of the ecosystem they make up. By a certain logic, everything's a parasite, like really what's the difference between a tapeworm and, I don't know, agriculture? It's just, of course, that we don't think of our bodies as "environments" and obviously parasites - as with us, monoculture farming, and "drugs" like Roundup - can cause problems within the body though then again it's in a parasite's interest to be somewhat unobtrusive since the less noticeable it is, the less the body will do about it. And, with some parasites, there becomes a strange relationship, neither mutual where both benefit nor commensal where one benefits and one isn't harmed, but one where we're feeding it and it sucks for us but it's also killing harmful bacteria on its own behalf that benefits us and, perhaps, across eons, it may sort of become us like kind of eventually not just become a mutual relationship but become part of our bodies. Strange isn't it but - and this wasn't really central to the book - this happens all the time, as in apparently our mitochondria used to be an independent bacteria that got roped into some kind of parasitic relationship which eventually became the motor of basically all animal life. Same with chlorophyll, which was at one point a something - bacteria? - that got pulled in by a nascent plant feeding off of it and eventually became all plant life. So for me this book, which is really an overview of gross worms and how they jump from intermediate hosts to final hosts (like with malaria and mosquitoes), instigated some thoughts more than was actually about those thoughts. And as an overview, it was fine and informative, but definitely more in the category of a broad list of parasites and how they operate while touching on some underlying evolutionary relationships rather than being about those relationships. And this isn't a criticism as the book never claimed to be a theoretical examination of parasites, evolution, and what constitutes a "body" and whether today's parasites will be tomorrow's cells but it made me wonder about that and was relatively short and if you like this kind of thing, it's worth adding to your shelf.
For more book, TV, and movie reviews, subscribe to my Substack The Media Report and follow me on Twitter and Instagram!
August 2, 2024
easily one of the worst books I've ever read in terms of writing style and organization. this book could not draw a straight line from A to B if it tried. random irrelevant details abound and unnecessarily repetitive and shallow ideas aplenty. Scott Gardner refers to himself in the third person in his own book.
October 22, 2023
This was an okay book. If you don't know a lot about parasites then it is a great primer. It is definitely light on the science so the information can be easily understood by non-scientist. It is more of an overview. Read my full review at Girl Who Reads.
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