| |
| | General Parasitology |
 | | Parasitism is carried out by many organisms, the main groups including viruses, bacteria, protozoa (these usually being endoparasitic), and various metazoan groups (multicellular eukaryotic animals), these being mostly groups of helminths (often endoparasitic), and arthropods (usually ectoparasitic), as well as some higher organisms, such as ectoparasitic lampreys and hagfish. |
 | | Generally however, for partly historical reasons, the term parasitology generally only refers to the study of infection with eukaryotic protozoan, and invertebrate metazoan parasites, not bacteria, viruses or the higher chordate parasites, even though these are parasites in the true sense. |
 | | The two terms definitive and intermediate host are the most important in parasitology when referring to the type of host. |
| www.path.cam.ac.uk /~schisto/General_Parasitology/Old.Gen.Parasitology.html (3206 words) |
|