History Main / ProportionatelyPonderousParasites

* The ''Manga/JunjiItoKyoufuMangaCollection'' story "Washed Ashore" features a serpentine creature the size of a whale with a head resembling a mass of barnacles and translucent flesh which probably glowed when it was alive. Onlookers see smaller creatures through its clear skin, but in a horrifying twist on this trope, [[spoiler:its parasites are humans that it consumed, who managed to survive being eaten by absorbing nutrients inside the creature's intestine. Understandably, [[GoMadFromTheIsolation they've all been driven insane after being trapped inside a sea monster for seven years]]]].

* ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'': This trope is weaponized when a quartet of Kaiju are infected with intestinal parasites that drive them wild with hunger. Roxxon releases them in downtown Houston in order to draw out the hulk team for an extended character assassination. It works.

** ''Film/TheReturnOfGodzilla'' started this trope in modern times possibly. Here, Godzilla is afflicted with 4 to 5ft long sea lice which are hostile to human beings. They are called Shockirus.

* ''Film/PacificRim'' has some appear on screen. They look like isopods, but are the size of footballs -- just larger than the deep sea isopods found on the ocean floor. Strangely, they're [[UglyCute often considered to be fairly endearing]] creatures, and don't seem to pose any risk to humans.

* ''Literature/TheKaijuPreservationSociety'': Has this is an important trope, the Kaiju here are essentially walking ecosystems with the "parasites" actually living on them in an intricate web of commensal and mutual relationships, They're the technically the top predators on the alternate Kaiju Earth doing the actual killing and food collection. Not just between the kaiju and their parasites but between the different species of parasites that live on the Kaiju. There are even a widespread species of parasites solely dedicated to helping the various species of kaiju breathe and cool their biological reactors.
* [[https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625793614/9781625793614___3.htm "Poor Little Warrior"]]: A short story by Creator/BrianAldiss about a time-traveling big game hunter who kills a brontosaurus (sic), only to be killed by the vermin swarming off its carcass.
* ''Literature/{{Magehunter}}'': The titular character slays a GiantCrab while docking at Kallamehr's bay. He returns to the same spot, with the crab's carcass still there, only to be attacked by giant parasitic worms feasting on the crab, the size of large snakes.

* [[WombLevel The inside of Jormundgandling]] in ''VideoGame/WanderingHamster'' contains cells and bacteria that are about the size of Bob (who ''isn't'' an ordinary little hamster).
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has a particularly extreme example. The planet Azeroth itself is the embryonic form of a Titan called a world soul. The Old Gods are huge parasites that feed on and corrupt dormant world souls.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Catscratch}}'' where the cats thawed out a woolly mammoth from a glacier, it came with fleas big enough for Waffle to ride on like a bucking bronco.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'' centered around Shnitzel and Chowder climbing a giant to make a delivery, and they run into a swarm of giant bugs along the way. The bugs appearing around waist level and Shniztel's [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow refusal]] to explain to Chowder where they came from implies the bugs were equivalent to pubic lice.

* Whale tapeworms can grow to more than 100 feet long, due to the immense length of their host's digestive tract. Likewise, some of the largest barnacles on Earth grow on the snouts and flukes of humpback whales.

* ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'': In the final arc of Creator/WarrenEllis's initial run, the team is up against a beyond-huge pyramidal space entity that, as a scientist put it, created Earth as a {{Mordor}}[=-esque=] vacation home, and is not happy to find that life has developed to such a degree. Inside it, the team finds an entire civilization of parasitic lifeforms that build whole cities within the creature. These parasites later hire Franchise/{{Lobo}} to get revenge on the team.

* One issue of the 2016 of the ''ComicBook/SilverSurfer'' solo has Norrin and Dawn enter the mouth of a truly enormous SpaceWhale. Inside they encounter its immune system, which are palm-sized sentient organisms, at war with ThePlague of equal size.

When there are [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever monstrously large creatures]] roaming the country side, you can expect the things that live on them (be they parasitic or symbiotic) to also be monstrously large, the creepiest of BigCreepyCrawlies. They may be annoyances for their host, but for humans, they can be deadly. They're often monstrous or mutated just to be able to live on such gigantic life forms.

* ''VideoGame/WorldofWarcraft'' has a particularly extreme example. The planet Azeroth itself is the embryonic form of a Titan called a world soul. The Old Gods are huge parasites that feed on and corrupt dormant world souls.

* In the ''Manga/JunjiItoKyoufuMangaCollection'' story "Washed Ashore", the eponymous "[[SeaMonster thing]]" is a serpentine creature the size of a whale with a head resembling a mass of barnacles and translucent flesh which probably glowed when it was alive. Onlookers find its body is filled with smaller creatures through its clear skin, but in a horrifying twist on this trope [[spoiler:its parasites are humans that it consumed, who managed to survive being eaten by absorbing nutrients inside the creature's intestine. Understandably, [[GoMadFromTheIsolation they've all been driven insane after being trapped inside a sea monster for seven years]]]].

* The Creator/JunjiIto one-shot "The Thing That Drifted Ashore", the eponymous "[[SeaMonster thing]]" is a serpentine creature the size of a whale with a head resembling a mass of barnacles and translucent flesh which probably glowed when it was alive. Onlookers find its body is filled with smaller creatures through its clear skin, but in a horrifying twist on this trope [[spoiler:its parasites are humans that it consumed, who managed to survive being eaten by absorbing nutrients inside the creature's intestine. [[GoMadFromTheIsolation Understandably, they've all been driven insane after being trapped inside a sea monster for seven years]]]].

* ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' : In the Final arc of Warren Eliss's initial run, the team is up against a beyond-huge pyramidal space entity that, as a scientist put it, created Earth as a {{Mordor}}-esque vacation home, and is not happy to find that life has developed to such a degree. Inside it, the team finds an entire civilization of parasitic lifeforms that build whole cities within the creature.
** These Parasite's later hire ComicBook/{{Lobo}} to get revenge on the team.

* One issue of the 2016 of the ComicBook/SilverSurfer solo has Norrin and Dawn enter the mouth of a truly enormous SpaceWhale. Inside they encounter its immune system, which are palm-sized sentient organisms, at war with ThePlague of equal size.
* ComicBook/ImmortalHulk: This trope is weaponized when a quartet of Kaiju are infected with intestinal parasites that drive them wild with hunger. Roxxon releases them in downtown Houston in order to draw out the hulk team for an extended character assassination. It works.
* Parodied in the Italian comic book ''Nilus'': in a strip a group of Egyptian soldiers try to approach a sleeping [[OurGiantsAreBigger Goliath]] to capture him, but are forced to make a run for it when they're attacked by Goliath's dog-sized lices.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/PacificRim'' has some appear on screen. They look like isopods, but are the size of footballs -- just larger than the deep sea isopods found on the ocean floor. Strangely, they're [[UglyCute often considered to be fairly endearing]] creatures, and don't seem to pose any risk to humans.

* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' has its main monster, Clover, beset with extremely dangerous dog-sized "flea"-like creatures living on its hide. Their bite is extremely dangerous and they're about five feet long to boot. If anything they seem to be more dangerous on a personal level than Clover, which is just wandering around in confusion; the fleas actively hunt.
* ''Film/LandOfTheLost'' has a scene where Will Ferrell's character gets a mosquito the size of a football. It drains so much blood out of him he grows pale and passes out, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard squishing the mosquito]].

* ''TabletopGame/StarFleetBattles'': Captain's Log #40 is a short story titled "The Nature of the Beast". A Federation starship encounters a huge monster called a Space Manta, which is infested with giant parasites. The Manta can "fire" them at targets as if the parasites were guided missiles.

* The giant monster Sin from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' is covered in living scales the size of a human called Sinscales, which it can fire in large quantities at small enemies. And that's not even getting into the giant monsters that live inside it.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' has the Parasite Cage, boss of the Monstro level. It's significantly larger than Sora.
* ''[[Videogame/GhostsNGoblins Ghouls N Ghosts]]'' has a MultiMookMelee made up of giant carrion feeders coming out of a giant corpse.
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has Beelzebub, a gigantic corpse hanging from chains which has to be destroyed to stop the giant flies and maggots continually spawning from it.
* ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'': Zerg buildings contain short-lived tiny (relatively speaking, they look about the size of a human) organisms that are little more than teeth, claws, and legs, that swarm the closest enemy unit on the building's death.

* ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'': Some enemies are infested with parasitic worms that are long enough to become entirely new enemies when the first one is killed. [[spoiler:Kos, the dead EldritchAbomination at the heart of the DLC, has parasites large enough to be equippable hunter weapons]].
* ''VideoGame/EndlessLegend'' has the Urkan Lice, roughly man-sized creatures that infest the Urkans, which are more or-less {{Kaiju}}.
* ''VideoGame/StarRenegades'': The Abomination found on Prycon is infested with mites that are roughly the size of the Renegades.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Catscratch}}'' where the cats thawed out a woolly mammoth from a glacier, it came with fleas big enough for Waffle to ride on like a bucking bronco.

* [[https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625793614/9781625793614___3.htm "Poor Little Warrior"]]: A short story by Creator/BrianAldiss' about a time-traveling big game hunter kills a brontosaurus (sic), only to be killed by the vermin swarming off its carcass.

* ''Literature/TheKaijuPreservationSociety'': Has this is an important trope, the Kaiju here are essentially walking ecosystems with the "parasites" actually living on them in an intricate web of commensal and mutual relationships, They're the technically the top predators on the alternate Kaiju Earth doing the actual killing and food collection. Not just between the kaiju and their parasites but between the different species of parasites that live on the Kaiju. There are even a widespread species of parasites solely dedicated to helping the various species of kaiju breath.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/CatScratch'' where they thawed out a woolly mammoth from a glacier, it came with fleas big enough for Waffle to ride on like a bucking bronco.

* ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' once encounters a beyond-huge pyramidal space entity that, as a scientist put it, created Earth as a {{Mordor}}-esque vacation home, and is not happy to find that life has developed to such a degree. Inside it, the team finds an entire civilization of parasitic lifeforms that build whole cities within the creature.
* One issue of the 2016 of the Silver Surfer solo has Norrin and Dawn enter the mouth of a truly enormous SpaceWhale. Inside they encounter its immune system, which are palm-sized sentient organisms, at war with ThePlague of equal size.

* In the novel ''Literature/TheSkyPeople'', the dinosaurs on an alternate Venus have lice the size of crayfish; you do NOT want to get one on you.
* In Creator/BrianAldiss' short story [[https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625793614/9781625793614___3.htm "Poor Little Warrior",]] a time-traveling big game hunter kills a brontosaurus (sic), only to be killed by the vermin swarming off its carcass.

* In Myth/HinduMythology, Earth was made from the remains a giant which the gods made and sacrificed to themselves. Some versions go on to state that the various parasites on his body became the creatures of the Earth.

* The Creator/JunjiIto one-shot "The Thing That Drifted Ashore", the eponymous "[[SeaMonster thing]]" is a serpentine creature the size of a whale with a head resembling a mass of barnacles and translucent flesh which probably glowed when it was alive. Onlookers find its body is filled with smaller creatures through its clear skin, but in a horrifying twist on this trope [[spoiler:its parasites are humans that it consumed, who managed to survive being eaten by absorbing nutrients inside the creature's intestine. Understandably, they've all been driven insane after being trapped inside a sea monster for seven years]].