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Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
 
 
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~ (Author) "In the beginning there was fever..." (more)
Key Phrases: genetic parasites, many other parasites, bladder worms, Red Queen, United States, Central America (more...)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Many books provoke a visceral reaction, but few really make you itch. Science writer Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex does just that, provoking a deliciously creepy sense of paranoia in the reader as it explores a long-misunderstood realm of science. While entomologists love to announce that there are more species of insects than all other animals combined, few parasitologists choose to trump that by reminding us that "parasites may outnumber free-living species four to one." That figure is based on the multicellular chauvinism of the 19th century, which excludes bacteria and fungi from consideration (athlete's foot, anyone?), but Zimmer looks at the E. coli in our guts as well as the worms, flukes, mites, and other critters that earn a healthy living at our expense--and the expense of our domesticated plants and animals.

The author traveled to Africa to see firsthand the effects of sleeping sickness and river blindness. He learned from physicians and researchers that the parasites that wreak so much havoc are much more than the simple degenerates we've taken them for. Their complex adaptations to their environments--us--are as lovely and awe-inspiring as any eye or wing. The examples of hormonal and other behavioral control of hosts, causing changes in feeding habits and other life essentials, are chilling when personalized. Zimmer knows his subject well, and his writing, while robust and affecting, never descends to the all-too-easy gross-out. You wouldn't expect to find respect for a tapeworm, but Parasite Rex will show you how beautiful Earth's truly dominant life forms are. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.



From Publishers Weekly

One of the year's most fascinating works of popular science is also its most disgusting. From tapeworms to isopods to ichneumon wasps, "parasites are complex, highly adapted creatures that are at the heart of the story of life." Zimmer (At the Water's Edge) devotes his second book to the enormous variety of one- and many-celled organisms that live on and inside other animals and plants. The gruesome trypanosomes that cause sleeping sickness had nearly been routed from Sudan when the country's civil war began: now they're back. Costa Rican researcher Daniel Brooks has discovered dozens of parasites, including flies that lay eggs in deer noses: "snot bots." And those are only the creatures from the prologue. Zimmer discusses how the study of parasites began, with 19th-century discoveries about their odd life cycles. (Many take on several forms in several generations, so that a mother worm may resemble her granddaughter, but not her daughter.) He looks at how parasites pass from host to host, and how they defeat immune systems and vice versa. Many parasites alter their hosts' behavior: Toxoplasma makes infected rats fearless, thus more likely to be eaten by cats, who will then pick up the microbe. Quantifiable "laws of virulence" lead parasites to become nasty enough to spread, yet not so nasty as to wipe out all their hosts. And eons of coevolution can affect both partners: howler monkeys may avoid violent fights because screwworms can render the least scratch fatal. Two final chapters address parasites in human medicine and agriculture. Not only are parasites not all bad, Zimmer concludes in this exemplary work of popular science, but we may be parasites, tooDand we have a lot to learn from them about how to manage earth, the host we share. Illus. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Carl Zimmer
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
In the beginning there was fever. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
genetic parasites, many other parasites, bladder worms, lancet fluke, complement molecules, cassava mealybug, blood flukes, parasitic barnacle, final host, parasitic animals, pill bugs, green crab, new parasites, filarial worms, other immune cells
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Red Queen, United States, Central America, New Zealand, South America, Armand Kuris, Latin America, Costa Rica, Santa Barbara, David Roos, Kevin Lafferty, National Parasite Collection, San Francisco, University of California, East Africa, Ray Lankester, Richard Dawkins, Starlight Island
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71 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book will alter how you look at the world, December 3, 2000
This review is from: Parasite Rex : Inside The Bizarre World Of Natures Most Dangerous Creatures (Hardcover)
This is one of those rare books that can totally alter how you look at the world. Read it and you begin seeing parasites in every skin blemish you have. See a cat catch a mouse and all you can do is think about all the parasites its about the ingest. You find youself wanting to visit the parasite museum in Maryland to see all the horrible creatures you've been reading about. You begin thinking that Zimmer's right and that parasites have driven the evolution of the world. You begin wodering if Stephen King has read it and if so what novel he's writing. You begin wondering if there's thousands of little cysts in your brain and that your life goal of going on safari in Africa may need revaluated. You imagine what its like to extract a guinea worm from your leg. You question whether or not you will ever eat crab again. You wonder whether the reason you've been so hungry of late is because there's a sixty foot long tapeworm inside your intestines. It's a stunning book and an important one. Zimmer found something obvious that's been overlooked in biology and if he's right will change the way we view life. Survival of the individual will be changed to survival of the creature living inside the indiviual. For example, there is a parasite that gets inside a snail, takes it over, forces it climb a blade of grass and wait for a grazing cow to wander by and eat it. The cow is where the parasite wants to end up. The snail is just a vessel to reach the cow. The young of the parasite end up in cow pies which the snail eats and the cycle begins again. The complex world of flukes and tapeworms, of enslaved crabs and suicidal snails, of sleeping sickness and malaria, is like a car wreck: you want to turn away but you can't, you're compelled to look fearful of what you might see. As you explore the book you learn that these creatures are much more than revolting. I can't say you'll ever view them with sympathy, you can view them with respect -- and hopefully at a safe distance.
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34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hippity hop! Where to stop?, November 14, 2004
By Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Once considered a "degenerate" form of life, parasites are being seen as important indicators of how evolution has progressed over 4 billion years. Zimmer credits them with being the driving force for biological diversity. He substantiates this claim with a sweeping, evocative survey of what is known today about parasites. That, he regretfully concedes, is little enough. What is known is that many early conceptions about parasites needed to be thrown aside as more information about this highly adaptable and widely variable range of organisms emerges.

While we may recoil at the term "parasite", Zimmer identifies but one villain in this book. Ray Lankester, a devoted Edwardian-era evolutionist, postulated that parasites were a "regressive" form of organism. He thought they shed evolutionary advantages as they simplified their bodies through their life cycles. Lankester thus set the tone for generations - biologists avoided studying parasites as offering no additional information revealing evolution's processes. Zimmer explains that since parasites are predators, it was thought they ought to follow the patterns of other predators - stalking prey like lions, or following scent gradients like sharks.

Instead, as more about them came to light, it was revealed how adaptive parasites are. Some, in fact, have developed the talent of making "prey" come to them. One fluke invades a snail early in its career. In an intermediate, but distinctive form, it then moves to an ant. Residing in the ant's brain, at some point it directs the ant to climb a grass stalk. There it waits for the grass, along with the ant and itself, to be eaten by a cow. The fluke cruises through the cow's stomach before taking up residence in the liver as adults, yet another body form. When the eggs are produced, they return to the intestinal tract to be later deposited on the ground, awaited by the snails. Looking at each phase, residing in a different host, you would be inclined to see it as a separate species.

This note is but one of the endless chorus of parasite adaptations Zimmer relates in this excellent book. He joins the refrain of older scientists lamenting the lack of upcoming researchers needed in parasite studies. Unlike the animals we see around us, most parasites have astonishingly varied body forms as they go through the phases of their life cycles. For years, this catalog of body plans was thought to display different species. Only recently has it been demonstrated that these creatures changed shape and function dramatically as they changed living environments. Identifying each stage, the invader's function there, the impact on the host and other elements requires long, patient and dedicated work.

Those of us in the urban world think we can keep parasites at a distance, flooding our farms and wetlands with chemicals to fend them off. This is false confidence, Zimmer reminds us. Parasites are the most adaptable forms of life on the planet. They are as likely to promote change as respond to it. Zimmer cites Robin Dunbar's thesis that grooming for parasites ultimately allowed humans to develop speech and language. He explains how our immune systems and parasites enter a modus vivendi that allows the parasite and host alike to survive. Recognising how that process evolved could lead to better coexistence through "taming" the invaders.

Coexistence with these minute creatures turns out to have many implications. It's now clear that the development of agriculture made human society vulnerable to invaders unknown on the savannah. Human bodies became less robust and mortality rates rose. How far back in time have they had influences on us and what are those? Zimmer suggests that some monkeys have developed "manners" in resource or mate competition. They scream and cavort, but don't scratch or bite rivals for fear of bloodworm infection. Others use particular leaves to clear digestive tracts of infestations. We hear of researchers seeking "genes for" schizophrenia, homosexuality, even "gods". Zimmer thinks we're looking in the wrong place. Instead, he urges, we should identify the "flukes for" these and other aspects of human behaviour and form. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Nature red in tooth and claw? Think again., October 22, 2000
By implacable (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Parasite Rex : Inside The Bizarre World Of Natures Most Dangerous Creatures (Hardcover)
Luered by the fascinating account of guinea worms and toxoplasma mentioned in Salon's interview with Mr. Zimmer, I have picked this book - and I was not disappointed. The first half of the book focusses on myriad examples of parasitic lives - which is written so beautifully, it is worth the price of the hardcover by itself. Who would have thought a blood fluke can be such a romantic? The author also introduces the people who studies the undeservingly esoteric subjects, but the main characters in the book remains to be the parasites, which leads very interesting lives. The second half becomes more theoretical, where he discusses the ecological and evolutionary root and consequences of parasitic organisms. Because the book is written for non-biologists, he does go over some facts that are obvious to anyone who has studied biology, and I found that a little tiresome (but I understand that this is necessary for many). However, if you have read Richard Dawkin's famous book "The Selfish Gene", this book brings some fresh insight into the evolution of "replicators" and the development of sex and immune system (if you have not read it, I suggest you read that as well). All in all, it is a concise, engaging book which makes for an excellent weekend read. This book will also cram you with so many interesting stories that by the end of the read you will be dying to share the fascinating stories of parasites with your friends.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Reviewing Kindle edition not book content: Flawed and Incomplete edition
I Purchased the Kindle Edition of this book and am midway through the reading. I am VERY dissatisfied with the edition. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Alejandro Frenkel

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding science writing
It's very rare these days that I encounter popular science writing that contains much that is truly new or surprising. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Elliott Bignell

5.0 out of 5 stars Bizarre world, bizarre creatures
Parasite Rex, a title that is inspired by some of the earth's most fear and, surprisingly, awe inducing creatures. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Maranda M. Richardson

5.0 out of 5 stars Planet of the Parasites
What comes to your mind when you think of the word "parasite"? Before reading Parasite Rex, I would have only thought of tapeworms. Read more
Published 7 months ago by PB&J

4.0 out of 5 stars Learn From the Masters
As the author ends his tale from this introductory look into the world of parasites, "If we want to succeed as parasites, we need to learn from the masters. Read more
Published 13 months ago by James East

3.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to Earth
Some other customer reviewers treat this book as if it was a horror novel by Stephen King, and both the title and the back matter certainly give that impression. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Ashtar Command

5.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 Stars for Raising Questions I Felt Better Once Having Remained Ignorant About, But Am Glad That Changed
I read the 2001 paperback of the 2000 book. It is very well written, which can't be said about all books on the topic. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Bonam Pak

5.0 out of 5 stars Great science writing, but fewer case histories would suffice
"Parasite Rex" is great science writing. For readers familiar with evolutionary and ecological theories, they will meet these theories in a new guise. Read more
Published 16 months ago by algo41

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book
I bought this book quite a long time ago and forgot to review it until now...I am a parasitologist and this is one of my favorites. Read more
Published 17 months ago by KGranieri

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book changes your outlook
Another excellently-written work from Carl Zimmer. This book will give you a bad case of the creepy-crawlies in parts. Read more
Published 18 months ago by W. Metz

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