6 Dec 2022

firecat: campanella staring at a rock (curious campanella)
Today I learned “there are more species that live as parasites than are free-living.”

So says Jerome Groopman in his article ”In Praise of Parasites?” in The New Yorker.

“There is something about parasites that arouses appalled fascination”: He’s speaking for me. He’s writing about the book Parasites: The Inside Story by Scott Gardner, Judy Diamond, and Gabor Racz (Princeton).

The authors approach parasites with “a more scientifically nuanced view,” describing how they co-evolved with hosts over time and how they fit into existing ecosystems, according to Groopman.

I love this kind of book, that talks about how life is so much more interconnected than we ever used to think. In the case of parasites, I feel a kinship because it’s always vaguely troubled me that as an animal, I need to eat other life to survive.

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