Step 1: Read the smear: tiny ring-shaped forms sitting inside red blood cells point straight to malaria.
Step 2: In malaria diagnosis, the thick film is the sensitive screen for parasite presence and the thin film lets you name the species. Here the thin film displays early ring trophozoites within and occasionally outside the erythrocytes, the classic Plasmodium morphology.
Step 3: The other listed organisms are not found as intra-red-cell rings on a peripheral smear, so the parasite shown is Plasmodium (malaria parasite).
\[\boxed{\text{Plasmodium malariae}}\]