Are a symbiote note a parasite. They're a dumbed down version of Cordyceps if i'm not mistaken. Cordyceps is a parasitic spore that infects ants, it gradually eats away at their brain and replaces it causing a 'stalk' to grow out of the ant's head and litterally takes control of the body like some kind of ant zombie puppeteer. Of course the version that infects the myr doesn't actually kill them it just wants to be their pal and quietly steal their acummulated knowledge but still. The only thing keeping them in the symbiote category is the host is not actually harmed by their presence. Cuntsnakes are also more symbiotic in nature hell their very well being is linked to that of their host when they're done. mims I honestly can't say I paid enough attention to what they even do to classify but since they're on mehnga I doubt they're hardcore enough to call parasites. Nothing on Mhenga is anywhere near as horrifying as it should be. Jungles should be
teeming with creepy crawlers and horrifying things but
CoC worms just struck me as like... an objective detriment to your health and a constant discomfort.
Yes because they are a parasite. By definition what separates parasites from symbiotes is parasites harm the host they're detrimental in nature generally with 0 upsides for the host or provide pseudo upsides like numbing pain so the host can't feel the parasite eating them. (There are all kinds of horrifying parasites that actually exist)
People
really need to understand parasites are not your friend. Symbiotes might be, parasites are not, ever. They're always out to better themselves and no one else. If the host dies? Oh well, they often can move into another one.Some species are only parasitic at specific stages of their life cycle...such as for reproduction. In any case there's no situation where getting parasites would actually be a
good thing. Which really should be why V-KO's and other docs are around in the first place to purge these nasty little buggers when you pick one up.
What you
should be asking for if you're really into that sort of things is Symbiotic life forms, things that need other species to survive but that do something for their host/partner/whatever. However such creatures are much rarer in reality than parasites so good luck finding solid examples to base a species off of.