Intermediate Host
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Related to Intermediate Host: paratenic host
intermediate host
[‚in·tər′mēd·ē·ət ′hōst] (biology)
The host in which a parasite multiplies asexually.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Intermediate Host
(in biology). (1) An animal in which sexually immature parasites live. Those animals in which parasites reach sexual maturity and reproduce are called definitive hosts. Man, for instance, is the intermediate host of the causative agent of malaria (malarial plasmodium), while the mosquito is the definitive host.
(2) A plant on which a rust fungus, or a parasite of a cultivated plant, passes part of its life cycle. Most of these fungi form aecidial sporangiophores, or aecidia, on intermediate hosts; for example, stem rust of the grasses Puccinia graminis forms on barberry leaves.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.