Epibiont

An epibiont is like a little creature that lives on another creature called a host. Imagine you have a friend who always carries a little toy around with them. Now imagine if another toy decided to hang out on top of that toy all the time. That toy would be an epibiont! It gets to live on the host toy and maybe even gets some benefits from being there, like protection. But sometimes the host toy might not like having the epibiont there because it takes up space or uses up resources. In the same way, epibionts can either be helpful or a nuisance to their hosts in the real world.