Life is tough for teenage parasites

For a deep-sea parasitic worm, the epic journey to adulthood starts in a fish’s intestines.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

Chronicling the abundance and diversity of parasites at Nine North has become the focus of Dykman’s graduate research. According to the sparse scientific literature on vent parasites—epitomized by the paper “Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Parasites: Why Do We Not Find More?”—Dykman’s project should have been a dead end. “I had read that parasites aren’t that common at vents,” she said. “But I kept finding them.”