Regina G. Barber

We talk about what the Riddler tells us about the power of parasites through the ages and why breakthroughs in our fossil record may be tucked away in a basement.

I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

All right, for the lowdown on these creepies, these parasites this Halloween season, our dynamic duo is Carmen Nenglu and Danielle DeCarl.

Danielle, let's start with the basics.

What are the qualifications for being a parasite?

Yeah.

OK, so I've heard of a few kinds of parasite fossils, like the ones that live on other organisms and steal their food.

Like what kinds of parasites can be found in these fossil records?

So, Karma, I want to talk about the Riddler, this mystery you solve.

Like, take me back.

You're looking at all these images of ancient mollusks, basically with question marks on them.

And you're like, I have no idea what this is.

I mean, which is so cool.

And it makes it a kind of aquatic worm called a spionid.

So in the study, you said that this also shows the behavior of this really old spionid or parasitic worm.

And to actually show behavior in fossils is really, really rare.

What do you mean by that?

Like, how are you seeing the behavior of these parasitic worms on ancient mollusks?

Now that you've figured out that the riddler, it's an ancient parasite, what else can that tell us?

Now that we know more about this ancestor, how can that help us understanding that parasite now?