The life cycle of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria in humans, involves multiple stages that alternate between mosquitoes and humans. An infected female Anopheles mosquito takes a blood meal and injects Plasmodium sporozoites into the human host. The sporozoites travel to the liver where they mature and multiply into merozoites. The merozoites are then released into the bloodstream where they infect and multiply within red blood cells, periodically breaking out to infect new red blood cells and causing the cyclic symptoms of malaria.