Hyperparasite

A hyperparasite is a parasite (or parasitoid) which is parasitic on another parasite. Usually, this means it is parasitic on the larval stage of the victim species.

A hyperparasitoid chalcid wasp on the cocoons of its host, a braconid wasp. The victim is itself a parasitoid of Lepidoptera

A hyperparasitic microsporidian, the fungus Nosema podocotyloidis, is a parasite of the trematode Podocotyloides magnatestis. The trematode is itself a parasite of the fish Parapristipoma octolineatum.^[1]

Typical examples are members of the Apocrita, and some species in two other insect orders, the Diptera (true flies) and Coleoptera (beetles). Seventeen families in the Hymenoptera and a few species of Diptera and Coleoptera are hyperparasitic.^[2]

Primary parasitism in the Hymenoptera evolved in the Jurassic period about 135 million years ago.^[2]

In literature

Jonathan Swift refers to hyperparasitism in these lines from his poem
"On Poetry: A Rhapsody":^[3]

So nat'ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em.
And so proceeds ad infinitum.

Number of levels

Three levels of parasitism have been seen in fungi (a fungus on a fungus on a fungus on a tree).^[4]