Science Memes

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submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A superior parasite would keep the host alive for hundreds of years past it's normal lifespan, while ensuring that nothing of the host survives.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Nope. Evolution doesn't really work like that. A 'successful' organism simply needs to have offspring capable of producing more offspring. In the case of a parasite, it just needs to keep the host alive long enough to infect another host. Anything more than that and you start running into quality vs quantity issues. A longer living, self limiting parasite isn't going to reproduce as fast (as size longevity goes up, reproductive rates generally go down)

A fast acting, highly transmissible parasite is generally going to outcompete slower parasites.