malaria parasite

noun

: a protozoan of the sporozoan genus Plasmodium that is transmitted to humans or to certain other mammals or birds by the bite of a mosquito in which its sexual reproduction takes place, that multiplies asexually in the vertebrate host by schizogony in the red blood cells or in certain tissue cells, and that causes destruction of red blood cells and the febrile disease malaria or produces gametocytes by sporogony which if taken up by a suitable mosquito initiate a new sexual cycle see merozoite, ookinete, phanerozoite, schizont, sporozoite