Most parasites form a symbiotic relationship with the host organism. It doesn't behoove the parasite for the host to succumb to an illness. In real life instances most parasites go long undetected with the patient slowly shows signs of infection. Just saying
Fiery the angels fell, deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc
This is Science- FICTION. It is NOT a real parasite. The writers can make any rule they want. It is a good movie.
shareThe Ebola virus doesn't have a long dormancy and has a nearly 100% kill rate. I suspect there are more vicious pathogens in laboratory isolation. I'm assuming that all pathogens have a parasitic relationship with their host since they can't live outside it.
shareThat's a virus, not a parasite, big difference.
shareA parasite benefits the same as the virus: if the parasite remains undetected and doesn't make the host sick, then it can spread easier, more easily overwhelming the population.
Due to rate of symptoms with the worms, and the host feeling himself get bit, I doubt the worms would spread unknowingly. The advantage the worms have is dropping off the host and spreading out over the land, needing new human vectors to grow their numbers, not for transmission.
A parasitic relationship and a symbiotic one are two very different things.
A parasitic relationship is one in which one member of the association benefits while the other is harmed.[31] This is also known as antagonistic or antipathetic symbiosis.[13] Parasitic symbioses take many forms, from endoparasites that live within the host's body to ectoparasites that live on its surface. In addition, parasites may be necrotrophic, which is to say they kill their host, or biotrophic, meaning they rely on their host's surviving. Biotrophic parasitism is an extremely successful mode of life. Depending on the definition used, as many as half of all animals have at least one parasitic phase in their life cycles, and it is also frequent in plants and fungi. Moreover, almost all free-living animals are host to one or more parasite taxa. An example of a biotrophic relationship would be a tick feeding on the blood of its host.
Ebola just like this parasite would burn itself out eventually. I guess.
A parasite or virus that kills too fast or too good won't survive. Most likely natural selection would pressure them to become slightly less deadly.
The ideal virus probably doesn't have any symptoms at all.
Easily spread deadly parasites don't last long. Decimating their host population is essentially committing suicide. The ideal situation for a parasite is when it can live inside its host indefinitely (or at least through one cycle of reproduction) without ever causing anything more than low grade symptoms. Once the parasite-host relationship has existed with a given species for a very long time it tends to reach that happy equilibrium. However a virus or parasite that's recently become able to infect a new organism hasn't yet evolved to do minimal harm, and can be extremely lethal. The ebola virus is a good example. There are species in the fossil record which were wiped out that way. So the fear of a deadly plague appearing out of nowhere to bring down our civilization is unfortunately not without basis. It may not be terribly likely, but it could happen.
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