INSTITUTE OF HYDROBIOLOGY

5. Spin the Parasite

How to play?

Turn the wheel and find out where parasites hide on or inside the fish. In the cutout, locate the correct place on the fish’s body that each parasite attacks.

There can be more than one unwanted visitor in the same spot!

Under the flip-up tiles, you will find the parasite’s name and an interesting fact about it.

Glochidium

These are parasitic larvae of freshwater mussels, most commonly the swan mussel or the painter’s mussel.

Fish leech (Piscicola geometra)

A leech that feeds on blood from the gills and skin of fish. It can transmit pathogens.

Fish louse (Argulus sp.)

Fish lice are relatively large parasites and can easily be seen with the naked eye, which facilitates their identification and diagnosis.

PKD parasite (Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae)

This parasite causes considerable losses in salmonid farming. Mortality in aquaculture reaches about 30%.

Whirling disease parasite (Myxobolus cerebralis)

The occurrence of this parasite has a significant ecological impact, as it leads to a rapid decline in rainbow trout populations, which are highly susceptible, and a simultaneous increase in brown trout populations, which are resistant.

Swim bladder nematode (Anguillicola crassus)

Originally a parasite of Asian eels, where it had little pathogenic impact. After its introduction to Europe, where eels lack natural immunity, it began causing massive die-offs in their populations.

Gill fluke (Eudiplozoon nipponicum)

The adult develops by the fusion of two previously independent individuals into an X-shaped body.

Henneguya salminicola

The only known multicellular organism that has lost all of its mitochondrial DNA, which is necessary for cellular respiration – the cells of this parasite are therefore unable to breathe.