North Pole Parasites, Part I

I’m one of those people who starts listening to Christmas music when I’m working in lab before Thanksgiving. I enjoy the holiday season so much that I always do something holiday-themed on the blog. For instance, one year I made up pond/parasite ecology carols and Christmas cards that very few people found humorous. Another year I made a parasite-themed Christmas tree cartoon that again was vastly under-appreciated. And a third year I dressed up trematode cercariae as Santa and some elves, which I’m pretty sure earned at least one dry chuckle from some dude somewhere. This year is going to be the year that I officially and fantastically merge Christmas and parasite ecology forever. This year I’m going to give you

ONE WHOLE MONTH of NORTH POLE PARASITE ECOLOGY!!!

And I promise to use that color scheme only once. Today’s post is just a short introduction, so you know what’s coming in the month of December. But I will leave you with a bit of North Pole parasite ecology. Once upon a time, I repeated Mark Siddall’s joke that hippos are such angry beasts because they have leeches living in their rectums. Today, I will repeat Tommy Leung’s Susan Perkins’ joke that Rudolph’s nose is so red because he’s infected by a nose bot fly. (Disclaimer: if you’re searching for your Christmas spirit, you might want to hold off on googling “reindeer nose bot fly.”) I’m promise to think up some jokes of my own for the following posts.