FLATWORMS

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Platyhelminthes
Ex. Planaria, flukes and tapeworms
Class Turbellaria

Class Trematoda
 Class Cestoda
Characteristics of Platyhelminthes
• Body symmetery: bilateral
• Body organization: triploblastic (3 layers)
– Ectoderm
– Mesoderm (first!!)
– Endoderm
• Body Cavity: acoelomate
 Characteristics continued

• Digestive system:
mouth & gastrovascular
cavity

• Reproduction:
– Sexual:
hermaphroditic –
cross fertilization
occurs between 2
worms
– Asexual:
fragmentation
 – Characteristics
continued:
Movement:
Flatworms moves in 2 ways
1) Cilia = helps them glide through
water and on stream floors
2) Muscle cells = twist and turn

• Circulation: diffusion •
Nervous system:
– Cephalization(he concentration
of sense organs, nervous control, etc.,)
(first) & nerves
 – Eyespots, auricles,
sensitive to light &
chemicals
• Respiration: diffusion
through skin
• Excretion: tubes open to
outside, flame cells (rid of
excess H2O)& mouth
• Habitat: host (intestine) &
freshwater
• Ecological roles:
– Parasitic
– Food source
– Eat dead animals
• Saprophytes
(Consume dead organisms)
 Additional
information: Free
living ex) Planaria –
freshwater
 Stores food as fat
 Brain coordinates
movement & capable
of learning its way
through a maze
 Able to respond to
light & chemicals
 Additional information:
Parasitic
Ex) flukes and tapeworms
• Lives in digestive tract &
absorbs digested food
from host so, NO
digestive tract!
• This leaves more
room for reproduction
– capable of
producing
1,000s of eggs.
**DO NOT COPY
 Platyhelminthes vs Cnidarians
• Tissues organized into • No true organs
organs
– Reproductive system
(organized organs)
• Three embryonic tissue • Two Tissue layers
layers
– Mesoderm
• Bilateral Symmetry
• Radial Symmetry
• Cephalization and nerve
• Nerve Net
cords
 Class Cestoda
• AKA tapeworms
• Tapeworms are parasites that live in the
digestive system of vertebrate animals
 More on Tapeworms…
• Specialized for living within a host
– Lost most body systems
• No digestive, nervous, excretory, muscle systems
• Absorb food by diffusion through skin
– Has specialized reproduction
 **DO NOT COPY**

Tapeworm Reproduction
• Specialized body sections called proglottids
– Hermaphroditic
• Contain both ovaries and testes
• Can fertilize their own eggs
– Zygotes are passed out of host’s body with feces
– Larvae hatch in water and in grass
• Eaten by herbivore (intermediate host) – larvae then
burrows through wall of intestine and into blood stream
• Intermediate host contains tapeworm cysts (bladder
worm)– when ingested by final host (e.g. human) cyst
hatches out as scolex which then grows proglottids
 Tapeworm cont’d
• Two body regions
– Scolex – “head”
• No cephalization (the concentration of sense organs, nervous
control, etc.,)
• Hooks and suckers used to attach to inside wall of
intestine
– Proglottids
• Body segments for reproduction
Tapeworm life cycle
Taenia saginata
Taenia solium
**DO NOT COPY**
 Fun Facts About Tapeworms
• Some tapeworms grow quite long. One species that
parasitizes horses has been known to attain a length of
75 feet.
• Ingesting tape worms for reducing weight is a diet
routine: A rather surprising fact about tape worms is
that ingesting them as a weight-loss technique is
happening even in these modern times. The person
undergoing this method has the direct risk of an
infection. It also causes a dramatic reduction in the
body’s ability to absorb nutrients; and a counter-effect,
where the person eats more to balance the metabolic
stress once the diet regime is over.
 Class Trematoda

Ex: Chinese liver fluke

 Fluke (liver, lung, heart, intestine)
• Parasitic
– Pharynx swallows host’s tissue and body
fluids (including blood)
– Common intermediate host: raw fish
• No need for circulation or respiratory
system
– Live in tissues supplied by host’s blood
– Absorb through gastrovascular cavity
• Flame cells (Flame cells function like a kidney,
removing waste materials through filtration.)

• Nerve cords and anterior ganglia

– Do not have as specialized nerve cells like
Planaria
• Hermaphrodites
– Complex life cycle with numerous larval stages that infect a number of
hosts.
Liver Fluke Life Cycle
Blood Flukes
liver fluke
Class Turbellaria
 Planaria
• Excretion
– Two networks of tubes
– Attached to tubes are flame
cells
• Modified to work like a kidney
• Have cilia that cause excess
body fluid to move along
excretory tubes and eventually
out of planaria body
• Muscles
– Three layers of muscles below
ectoderm
– Constrict – shorten, and flatten worm.
 Flame Cell
1. Cell Nucleus
2. Bundle of Cilia (flame)
3. Parenchyma Tissue
4. Collecting Duct
1. Pharynx
2. Auricle
3. Eye spot
4. Pharynx
5. Gastrovascular
cavity
Marine Flatworms
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn3xluIRh1Y

Flatworms are hermaphrodites

When flatworms encounter each other, they engage in a

60 minute ‘dance’ during which they repeatedly strike at
each other, both trying to inject their sperm under the
skin of the other worm.

The ‘winner’ becomes the male for that encounter, and

the ‘loser’ must become the female & care for the
fertilized eggs!