Parasitism evolved at least 223 times, far more than the previous estimate of 60. It arose more times in certain phyla (e.g., arthropods, nematodes, flatworms, and mollusks) than in others. Today, ...

The parasitic wasp Dinocampus coccinellae is no fool. It controls a ladybug, lays an egg in its abdomen and turns it into the bodyguard of its cocoon. This surprising host-parasite manipulation has ...

Conspecific brood parasitism (CBP), whereby females lay eggs in the nests of other conspecifics, occurs in over 200 species of birds. As an alternative tactic to typical nesting, CBP expands and ...

Many animal species add their eggs to the brood of other species to benefit from the latter’s brood care. This is called brood parasitism. Researchers recently studied brood parasitism in two ...

Today, 150 years after Darwin’s epochal “On the Origin of Species,” many questions about the molecular basis of evolution are still waiting for answers. How are signaling pathways changed by genes and ...

The phenomenon of intraspecific germ cell parasitism may reveal a theoretical puzzle to the concept of Darwinian selection. In natural chimeras of the colonial protochordate Botryllus schlosseri, ...

In the late 19th century, when scientists first discovered the single-celled creature called Nephromyces, they thought it was a parasitic fungus. They were wrong ...

Even among the most durable migratory bird pairings, sexual exclusivity is rarely part of their relationship Nathan H. Lents, Undark For generations, anthropologists have argued whether humans are ...

Distinguished by its unusual morphology and a reproductive system based on something called "sexual parasitism," the anglerfish represents a study in how life adapts to severe environmental ...