SAN DIEGO — A parasite commonly called "the zombie snail" has been found at Lake Murray.
In 2019, a student of Scripps Institution of Oceanography Professor Ryan Hechinger found a snail that looked a little out of the ordinary.
"He was doing some highly encouraged exploration outside of his dissertation. He was out at Lake Murray just exploring and he saw dome high spired unicorn horn shaped snails found in the freshwater," said Hechinger.
His student took some snails back to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography where he discovered they were hosts to parasites that can infect humans, called trematodes. Hechinger says a trematode is a type of parasitic flatworm.
The species is invasive, and Hechinger explains how the parasite works.
"The parasite sets up shop in a snail, takes over the snail's body, and says 'it's now my body to make parasite babies.' They eventually leave that snail, find a fish, dig underneath the fish's skin and make a cyst," said Hechinger.
This is when the parasite becomes dangerous to humans. If someone were to eat an infected fish, they would get sick.
CBS 8 spoke to a few people out fishing at Lake Murray and no one knew about the species.
Dakota Brown was spending his Saturday fishing was surprised there was no signs to let people know about the snails.
"Parasites should be more spoken about, especially the smaller ones or newer ones especially when they adapt," said Brown.
Professor Hechinger says for those who may eat freshwater fish they catch, to take precautions.
"If you cook your fish, you're killing those parasites," said Hechinger. "If you like to eat fish raw, freezing will also kill them."
If you do consume an infected fish, the parasite won't zombie-fy you.
"If you have a few of them no big deal, they'll die in probably a couple weeks or a month and they're gone," said Hechinger.
He recommends that Lake Murray posts signage soon.
"My recommendation is that at least put up signage at these places to cook and freeze your fish," said Hechinger.
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