Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Flatworms: Phylum Platyhelminthes
Flatworms: Phylum Platyhelminthes
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