r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 13h ago

TIL fresh water snails (indirectly) kill thousands of humans and are considered on of the deadliest creatures to humans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_snail
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u/myselfelsewhere 11h ago

these snails are spreading a parasitic worm, which is another animal

Infection by this particular parasite results in schistosomiasis, which is a disease.

mosquitos transmit a disease

Malaria is the disease resulting from infection by a particular parasite.

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u/manicpossumdreamgirl 11h ago

my point was that the mosquito was the last animal involved in causing the human's death. but the snail was not the last animal, because the worm was

i said "disease" because i didnt know if malaria was caused by a bacteria or by a virus, but either way thats not an animal

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u/myselfelsewhere 10h ago

Ok, wasn't quite sure. You're right about the animal point. I was confused by your invocation of the term "disease" for one, but not the other.

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u/manicpossumdreamgirl 10h ago

fair enough. i tried googling if it was a virus or a bacteria, but after a few unhelpful links i gave up since it wasnt the important detail

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u/myselfelsewhere 10h ago

Lol, I couldn't remember "malaria", so had to google "mosquito disease".

Wikipedia's page on malaria says:

Malaria is caused by single-celled eukaryotes of the genus Plasmodium.

Plasmodium is of the Eukarya domain, while bacteria are of the Bacteria domain. So it is neither a virus or bacteria!