Readme file for the data in the paper Benesh et al. 2011. EXPLOITATION OF THE SAME TROPHIC LINK FAVORS CONVERGENCE OF LARVAL LIFE HISTORY STRATEGIES IN COMPLEX LIFE CYCLE HELMINTHS. Evolution. The data are split into two files, one which includes all observations on helminth size and development (Benesh_etal_dryad_full_dataset.csv), and one in which multiple observations for a single species have been averaged (Benesh_etal_dryad_species_avgs.csv). Both files include the following information: species name, helminth group, type of first and second host, development time to infectivity (days), temperature (C) at which the study was conducted, and the size of larval worms (width and length in um). In the file of the species averages, the notation for the life cycle type corresponds to that in the paper (i.e. Table 1). Any questions should be addressed to Dan Benesh (benesh@evolbio.mpg.de)