Marine Parasites

Parasites can be either generalists (infecting many host species) or host-specific (infect only one or a few closely related host species).

Fish may obtain parasites from their food, or are directly infected by free-living parasite stages in the sea.

Parasites may have complex life-cycles, involving up to 3 or more different host species (including marine invertebrates), or direct life-cycles, involving a single host species.

Parasites naturally occur on wild fish. Just like domestic animals have lice, fleas and tapeworms, marine fish can also host a wide variety of parasites.

Some of the most common parasites include skin crawlers (copepods), tongue biters or ‘doctors’ (isopods), ectoparasitic flukes (monogeneans), endoparasitic flukes (digeneans), round worms (nematodes), tapeworms (cestodes) and spiny headed worms (acanthocephalans) – to name a few!