Erick Arrashy Rudianto

New book added to my collection. I wish I could do fieldwork to New Guinea!

<i>Veneriserva pygoclava</i> There are many ways to become a parasite , and there are parasites with vastly different ancestries that end up joining the same path on th...

Wormception:
Veneriserva pygoclava is a worm with a name that translates into "Venus' servant" - but the truth is quite the opposite.
It is a polychaete worm that has evolved to live as a parasite inside the body of other polychaete worms.
#Invertebrate 🧪
dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2024/03/vene...

<i>Cymbasoma</i> sp. Floating amidst the ocean's plankton is a tiny monster, it has no mouth and it must mate, after which it will give birth to a new generation...

The ocean's Little Monsters:
Monstrilloids are copepods with a peculiar life cycle.
While the adults are planktonic, the juveniles are parasitic. They invade the bodies of invertebrates such as polychaete worms, and burst out of them xenomorph-style 🧪
dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2025/11/cymb...

Another paper was out in International Journal for Parasitology!
We systematically reviewed the relationships between fish body condition and parasite infections, very common approach for elucidating negative impacts of parasites on host health

Ramadhan Mubarak...

Please do this...

<i>Galactosomum nagasakiense</i> Galactosomum nagasakiense is a parasite that lives rent-free in fish's brain and give them " Trematode Whirling Disease " (TWD). There are ...

I've written a post about Galactosomum nagasakiense - a flashy fluke which lives rent-free in the heads of fish and literally gives them brain rot 🧪
dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2026/02/gala...

Found parasitic isopods from this nemipterid individual. The main problem is, I did not bring a larger tube with me...

For #WormWednesday
This is Stomachicola sp., a digenean that recently emended to family level (Stomachicolidae) from Hemiuridae. Found in a stomach of a pike conger, Muraenesocidae. Very unusual form for a digenean!

Figure 2: Example of photographs, received via citizen science, showing Caenoplana variegata collected from domestic pets. (A) Collected from a dog, (B–D) collected from cats. Cat hair still attached to the flatworm is visible in B and C. A, Case #07 in Table 1; B, Case #11; C, Case #12; D, Case #13. A, photograph by Catherine Vaillant; B, C, photographs by anonymous contributors; C, photograph by Floriane Delaval. Anonymous contributors signed a copyright consent for their photographs, but did not wish to have their name included in a publication.

Our new paper is now published! 🧪
"Cats, dogs, and sticky worms: invasion by land flatworms (Geoplanidae) is facilitated by household pets"
doi.org/10.7717/peer...

Saw this wedgefish at landing site TPI Ujung Batu, Jepara, North Central Java. My friend, Erza, identified this as Rhynchobatus cf. springeri which is currently classified as critically endangered

You can see here that the caligid copepod (left) has slight purple coloration.

For #WormWednesday this is a trematode from the genus Hamacreadium that was isolated from a lutjanid host. You can see a juvenile one on the dorsal part of the individual.

Some parasitic copepods that I've recovered so far during fieldwork.

Back from a fantastic field trip at #HeronIsland Research Station. Such a great place for echinoderm enthusiasts
(I counted 15 different species of sea cucumbers on the reef 🤩)

Acanthaster picture taken by @Caleb Trimble

I haven’t posted for a while, because I just don’t know what to say anymore…
But here are some prehistoric rock scratchings in Valcamonica that I found amazing, so maybe some of you will enjoy them too.

Guimaraesiella (Guimaraesiella) impiger sp. nov.

Guimaraesiella (Guimaraesiella) stellana sp. nov.

Managed to sneak in one paper before the New Year with coauthors @flyliceresearch.bsky.social and Daniel Gustafsson (not on Bsky)!

Introducing 2 new species of bird-infesting lice that, despite having no wings, appear to be adept at jumping across bird hosts and continents!

doi.org/10.1111/mve....

Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history Sponges have a cryptic Ediacaran history because ancestral sponges were soft-bodied and had low fossilization potential.

A new exciting paper on #sponge #evolution! Our results suggest that early sponges did not have #spicules and that both biosilicification and biocalcification evolved independently multiple times 🤯
www.science.org/doi/full/10....

#FossilFriday Graptolites are extremely useful as zonal fossils in the Ordovician and Silurian. Some look like pencil marks but better preserved examples, like this Monograptus priodon from the Wenlock of Scotland, resemble miniature saw blades.

(PDF) Symbiont Types of Scleractinian Corals in Java and Bali Waters, Indonesia PDF | Several effects of global warming, particularly coral bleaching, have threatened the symbiotic system of coral reefs. Coral reefs perform a... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ...

You can read the paper here:

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

My supervisor and her team just published a new paper "Symbiont Types of Scleractinian Corals in Java and Bali Waters, Indonesia".

Molecular analysis showed that majority of the zooxanthellae (family Symbiodiniaceae) belong to the genus Cladocopium with small fraction of Durusdinium.

Phylogenomics of Cypriniformes, the most diverse order of freshwater fishes: consensus, challenges and limitations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.14.699467v1

The ‘Java Man’, the first fossil evidence of Homo erectus, is now home The iconic Homo erectus fossil was welcomed home with a repatriation ceremony and a new museum exhibit in Jakarta.

“For too long, a significant part of our past held beyond everyday reach of Indonesian society. Scholars discussed it, museums displayed it, global narrative was shaped around it, yet the Indonesian people could not see them at home. That era ends today.” -Fadli Zon 🏺

<i>Limnotrachelobdella okae</i> Do you like eating fish? Well so do some leeches. Most people only know about the leeches that feed on humans, but there are also numerous o...

Big Croakers vs Big Suckers:
I've written a post about an outbreak of Limnotrachelobdella okae leech at a croaker farm off the coast of Raoping County, and how those big leeches and their bloody appetite caused a mass fish die-off
#Invertebrate 🧪
dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2026/01/limn...

Today is my last day in my hometown, so my mom is kindly enough to cook some of my favorite foods!

Poster of the EM course in Naples with marine samples. The Electron Microscopy Hands-On Course: sample preparation and imaging of marine environmental samples arises from a very strong and active collaboration between the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and the EMBL in Heidelberg. The aim of the course is to provide a theoretical and practical training on electron microscopy starting from the basics to the preparation of samples with high pressure freezing and image acquisition using TEM and SEM.

If you are interested in electron microscopy, registration is still open for the

"Electron Microscopy Hands-On Course: sample preparation and imaging of marine environmental samples"

at Stazione Zoologica in Naples.

WIth great teachers from Naples […]

[Original post on biologists.social]

Austropallene cornigera, a sea spider from the continental shelf waters around #Antarctica #Pycnogonida

Photo of the day....Austropallene cornigera, a sea spider from the continental shelf waters around #Antarctica #Pycnogonida 🧪🌎🦑🇦🇶 Collected in East Antarctica in 2023 on the NBP23-03 research cruise.

The coolest things that no one is talking about. What if we told you there were giant single cells in #deepsea that can reach over 20 cm

www.deepseapod.com/episodes/065
📸 NOAA public domain
1 of 3

Our eLetter github.com/caseywdunn/s... responding to a recent Science paper was just posted. The paper found more genes with consistent support for sponge-sister than ctenophore-sister. We found several technical issues that, when corrected, reverse the conclusions and recover ctenophore-sister.

A dead Pipistrellus kuhlii, partially dissected revealing a Hexametra angusticaecoides in the subcutaneous tissue

Suggested life cycle of Hexametra angusticaecoides with chameleons and other squamates being the parasite's usual definitive host and bats as accidental, dead-end host

Hexametra angusticaecoides is a nematode worm that usually infects lizards, (see: dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2020/08/hexa...) but this study found bats infected with this worm, possibly from eating insect prey which are usually eaten by lizards.
#Invertebrate 🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...