Once it lights on the body of a fish, its legs are marvelously designed to become grappling hooks and it attaches itself firmly to the body of its victim, which could be anyone of a number of fish, such as a carp or a sticklefish. Once it has itself attached, the host fish seems helpless to shake it off. The next piece of ingenious equipment the Argulus brings into play is a long sharp hypodermic needle. This it slides under the scale of the victim fish and into the body tissue. From thereon out the Argulus has a direct pipeline to the life juices of the victim, and can feed at will, with very little effort on its part.
Parasites can kill.
In such a case the fish becomes sluggish, and as it weakens, it dies. The Argulus have then lost their succulent host as a source, and must abandon it and make the effort to find another. The trichina is a small spiral worm, too small to be seen by the naked eye. Raw pork biggest source. The disease is mainly contracted by humans by eating raw or improperly cooked pork containing cysts of the larvae.