Cyclospora angi…what?????

Imagine it is the year 1990 when the most educated scientists, doctors, and veterinarians knew less, and society beyond less, about the world of parasites than they do today.  The worldwide web was close to non-existent and books were the key source for finding information.  There was no such thing as a “web-based parasite database” like there most likely is today, where the internet is home to virtually everything ever thought of.  With the internet, knowledge is essentially easily accessible. 

Your friend, who is a science fanatic, forgot a hefty library book on your kitchen table, entitled The Journal of Parasitology, from the current year.  You open it up to an article apparently introducing three species of coccidian parasites from heteromyid rodents with locations in Southwestern United States, Baja California, and Northern Mexico.  You have no idea what coccidian or heteromyid means, but you begin to read the associated article in which the scientific wording is enough to scare you.

You start to think the worst, and the idea of parasites sucking the life out of helpless, tiny, host animals is hard for you to swallow.  Then you begin to query and ponder the parasite’s existence.  You wonder if domesticated animals, such as your cat Kit Kat and dog Beau are susceptible to coccidian parasites.  Chills run down your spine when the idea of human hosts pops into your head!  What if the parasite makes its way to New England, where you’re from, and can survive in this type of environment?  Can they cause disease, and can it be treated or is it fatal?  Will we have the ability to break the lifecycle of the parasite?

You snap yourself out of your trance and think, “Maybe it’s one of those kinds of parasites that has a healthy relationship with its host.”  Your imagination has stopped running wild and you begin to see the positive sides to the discovery.  The parasites could even be helpful to science in that they could answer questions about other previously found parasites including host adaptations, pathology, prevalence, and locality.  They can offer more knowledge about potential health hazards comparable to known parasites, and be added to the worldwide known species list. 

You decide you want to learn more about the newly discovered parasites in which you’d never heard of before: Cyclospora angimurinensis, Eimeria chaetodipi, and Eimeria hispidensis.  You are going to read up on their morphology, biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, phylogenetics, lifecycles, and behavior.  You plan to keep tabs on your findings along the way, but that will be for another day.    

TO BE CONTINUED…

Ford, P. L., Duszynski, D. W., & McAllister, C. T. (1990). Coccidia (apicomplexa) from heteromyid rodents in the Southwestern United States, Baja California, and Northern Mexico with three new species from Chaetodipus hispidus. Journal of parasitology, 76(3), 325-331.