To my understanding, RES consume the infected snail during the parasite's first larval stage. If left undisturbed, the parasite will emerge from the snail as a free-swimming second stage larvae, where it will seek out a fish to act as a host. According to Cecil, the second stage larval form will only live for a short time after leaving the snail, so perhaps the reason we don't see as many infected RES has to do with their generally lower population density when compared to BG, and maybe their preferred habitat is slightly deeper, or at least puts them out of reach of many of the parasites?
Just guessing....
That sounds logical to me too. BUT, the RES eat snails, so they have to be near them then. I found a link to info about their life cycle and it has me wondering about a few things. I will see if I can post part of it here.
