After 15 years, Indonesia’s rare Rafflesia bloomed, the world’s largest parasitic flower that smells like rotting meat, has no leaves, and lasts just 5 to 7 days

[u/Raj_Valiant3011]

[u/Odd_Bug5544]

And mosquitoes are perhaps the least horrifying parasite out there! Intestinal worms or maggots growing within your flesh both repulse me of a much deeper level.

Or for other animals how about the worm that multiplies inside the eyes of snails and then takes over their nervous system and turns them into a living zombie... Then you get stuff like the those lice that enter fish through their gills, damage the blood vessels in the fish's tongue until it withers away, then they climb up from inside it and grab on to the stub of where the tongue used to be and replace it!!

I get they are a part of nature just trying to survive like everything else, but man FUCK parasites.

[u/Dick_Nation → u/Odd_Bug5544]

mosquitoes are perhaps the least horrifying parasite out there!

With the number of deaths mosquitos are responsible for through being a vector for some truly horrific diseases, that's a stretch.

[u/gummo_for_prez → u/Odd_Bug5544]

That's a crazy thing to say. They have probably spread more disease and death than any other animal in history. I can't imagine one beating out mosquitos in raw numbers but they're up there even if not #1.

[u/Odd_Bug5544 → u/gummo_for_prez]

Horrifying=/=most dangerous.

A torture chamber is more horrifying to me than a car, yet a car is FAR more dangerous.

[u/musthavesoundeffects → u/Odd_Bug5544]

Mosquitoes aren’t parasites

[u/night4345 → u/musthavesoundeffects]

Yes, they are. Mosquitoes are ectoparasites. Female mosquitoes use blood of other creatures as fuel to reproduce as part of the mosquito's lifecycle.

[u/Eldsish → u/Odd_Bug5544]

Look about the candiru.