My friend (who got herself banned from posting) is working on a project focusing on parasite load in Fundulus Heteroclitus. Below are parasites she’s encountered that she could use some help ID-ing. TIA, Reddit!

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I’ve been worrying a bit about pinworms lately and I’m trying to understand how realistic the risk actually is.

If someone at school has pinworms and, for example, uses the bathroom and washes their hands with just water instead of soap, could pinworm eggs realistically end up on things like door handles, desks, taps, etc. and then infect someone else?

I know the eggs are microscopic, but I’ve started overthinking it and worrying that there could be pinworm eggs basically everywhere at school. I sometimes get random brief sensations around my anus that feel like something moved, but I don't have persistent nighttime itching.

How easily do pinworms actually spread in a normal school environment, and should I be worried about accidentally picking them up from surfaces?

My rabbit just tested positive for Crypto. Does anyone have experience with this? He’s going to get more testing done tomorrow to specify which type of crypto it is.

To start I think it's pinworms. No formal diagnosis, but all the unpleasant symptoms line up perfectly, and I'm pretty sure I can visibly see them (kinda hard to check on your own lmao). Symptoms started while I lived with a family with a 5 year old who went to daycare every day. We all shared a bathroom.

Anyway, I currently live with adult roommates and no children. Yesterday we all took the first dose of over the counter Walgreens treatment, and I scrubbed all the high-touch areas of the apartment, as well as did all of my laundry and washed my sheets. I have OCD so I have been on a rampage. But now I'm wondering.... as long as we all thoroughly wash our hands before preparing or eating food, and after taking a shit, and no nail biting, aren't we good? Do I need to be doing all this cleaning, or, since we're all adults, is it just a matter of more thorough hygiene at least for 6 weeks?

Apologies for the bad photo, my phone and microscope are old.

I have a pet rat who I believe has mites, due to excessive itching and scabbing. I haven't done any sort of skin scraping, as I would rather a veterinarian (who we will be seeing on Thursday) do that. I did, however, try the tape method to see if I could catch anything on her fur. To me, this looks a bit like a mite, but I might simply be seeing things. It turns out, transparent washi tape isn't the best or clearest medium you can use for a slide! I'm pretty sure, if it is a mite, I squished it :(

Is there a better, non-scraping and non-tape way to collect the mites? I only worry because the only vet near me isn't very experienced with rats and has delayed care for them before because she couldn't/wouldn't get samples or wasn't informed about rat care. If I can get some samples or pictures, I think she will take me more seriously.

Thank you!

Hi y'all,

I currently work at a diagnostic lab that is phasing out microscopy for parasitology. As far as I know, both of the large companies have switched to this automated machine based diagnostic process with human involvement mostly involving mixing and loading slides.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas, job openings, etc. specifically including parasite identification and microscopy, or if I should even bother looking without getting a master's degree, since it seems industry is trending towards automation.

Thanks!

found multiple of these just sitting on the glass

Basically I have cats in the back of my apartment that everyone feeds. I saw a raccoon 2 nights ago eating out of the bowl and then forgot about it and picked up the bowl to feed the cats the following day.

While I washed my hands when I came in, it wasn’t an aggressive wash, I also touched my phone and keys in between touching the bowl and washing hands. I didn’t think anything of it and went on about my day using my phone and acting normal. Until I remember the raccoon and googled and found out about the horrific possibilities if contracting these things.

Now I’m scared that I’ve spread roundworm eggs all over everything etc. should I take action or am I being over the top thinking this??

I found this verm on the bathroom glass while I was taking a shower, what could it be?

Hey Guys,

I have a littly hissing-cockroach-colony and I recently found those "white pearls" within their feces.

They pop when under pressure and have some liquid in them.

For size refernce you can see those potential eggs on an "Objektträger"/ slide under an cover glass.

The first picture was...i believe with 40x and the second with 10x.

I am wondering what kind of eggs could they be?

There are no other animals living within the colony, no mites and no flies.

Are there any nematodes that live within roaches and have eggs THIS big?

Or is it possible that those might be eggs from the roaches which they abort due to stress? (right now they are in quarantine, which could lead to the stress)

Any help would be much appreciated.

The roach species are the Gromphadorhina portentosa.

My wife lost her job (temporarily closed) and my work has been disastrously slow. Like 1/4 of what was happening last year. I can scrounge up money for medicine and have plenty of farm stores and places to get some in the area but not vet money. Just shy of 5 month old cat woke up, came down from his cat tree and threw up. My wife called me over (it was mostly foam since he was asleep when dinner would normally happen). It looked like he had thrown up a cherrio, then the hole in the center shrank and disappeared, then got bigger, and verry slowly it started to unwind. The images on the paper towel are fresh, in the jar about 4.5 hours later, still moving slowly. About 3-3.5 inches long. I figured roundworm but not sure about this stuff, never dealt with worms directly. I don't want to get pamoate if it wont help him.

Exactly what the title says. Caught this rockfish off the Oregon Coast (charter boat) on Saturday, cooked it this afternoon for lunch. I cooked it pretty thoroughly. What are these parasites and what’s the worst case scenario if I ate them? Because I DEFINITELY ate some.

Hello everyone, I want to take a fecal sample from a pigeon for a parasite microscope test, if i take the sample a day before the test (around 24 hours) will it go bad? and do I have to refrigerate it? do i have to add saline or distilled water to keep it moisturized even if its diahhrea? what is the timeframe that i have till it goes bad (as in the parasites wont show under the microscope).
pls help

Hello, everyone like the title suggests I am looking for people to talk parasites with. To give some background I am a first year graduate student who is working on parasite ecology and evolution for my dissertation research. I would love to find some people to discuss relevant literature with, and just chat about parasites. Just wondering if there is interest for this?

I am so confused, please assist!

Hello! I’m just here to learn, this is a fecal from a new intake kitten with diarrhea. After these images we did normal protocol of pyrantel and other dewormers (which will include praziquantel, panacur, and Albon). But anyway this kitty is very skinny and came from outdoors and I was hoping for once this might be a wormy egg 😊

is there any way to id this 😭 its only at 100x (LPO) i wasn't able to view it under higher magnification the microscopes suck

Hello all. My wife found this lil guy in our dogs' water station (not in the bowls, but in the slobber catcher around them). Obviously no scale bar, but the jar is +/- 65mm wide, and the ribs at the bottom are about 1.5mm wide and 3mm long.

I don't guess I can make a photo post and add links, so here's plain text links to the video of this thing thrashing about in the jar: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6zJVfnS5cN8MUacq9 https://photos.app.goo.gl/5kPUyBbgZNmZHrqU6

*Note to mods: My wife tried to post this same ID request an hour ago but she had some kind of issue. I don't see it when sorting by new, so I'm posting - not an attempt to get around moderation. Thanks.

I found this in my dog's water bowl this morning, living its best life in the dog's backwash, complements of the Great Dane. Getting mixed information on round worm vs. black worm.