 Protozoa:

• Single Celled Organisms

• Eukaryotic
 Arthropods

 Platyhelminthes -Trematodes,
Cestodes - Flatworms

 Nematodes – Roundworms
*
 Phylum Platyheminthes

 Class Trematoda (Digestive system is incomplete)

Subclass Digenea
Superfamily Echinostomatoidea
Genera: Fasciola, Fasciolopsis, Echinostoma
Superfamily Opisthorchioidea
Genera: Opisthorchis, Clonorchis, Heterophyes,
Metagonimus
Superfamily Allocreadioidea
Genera: Paragonimus
Superfamily Schistosomatoidea
Genera: Schistosoma

Class Cestoidea (tapeworms) Lack a mouth and digestive tract.

 Class Trematoda

 All parasitic, both as endoparasites and ectoparasites

 No true segmentation
 Digestive system is incomplete
 Have suckers as holdfasts
 Adults are parasitic in or on vertebrates
 Subclass Digenea

Superfamily Echinostomatoidea
Genera: Fasciola, Fasciolopsis, Echinostoma
Superfamily Opisthorchioidea
Genera: Opisthorchis, Clonorchis, Heterophyes,
Metagonimus
Superfamily Allocreadioidea
Genera: Paragonimus
Superfamily Schistosomatoidea
Genera: Schistosoma
 Subclass Digenea

 All are endoparasites

 Complex indirect life cycles
 Have sexual and asexual generations
 All flukes in this course are digenetic
 First intermediate host is a gastropod
 General morphology

 Range in size from

<1mm to >5cm
 At least one sucker
 - powerful oral sucker that
surround the mouth
 Midventral sucker or
acetabulum
 Both circular and
longitudinal muscles (not
as extensive as in
cestodes)
 The tegument

 Is syncytial (no cell

membranes boundaries
between cells).
 Outer membrane surface
is a glycocalyx ; contains
invaginations and ridges
 May contain spines
(distinct from the
microtriches of cestodes)
 General morphology cont’d

 Digestive system is incomplete – only

one opening (mouth) present
 Ingest blood and mucus tissue

 Nervous system is ladder-like

 Several nerves run throughout fluke body
connected to cerebral ganglion; contain
nerve connection sites called
commissures

 Excretory system – protonephridia

 Flame cells
 Metabolic waste diffuses across tegument
 Skeletal, circulatory and respiratory
systems lacking

 Reproductive system is fully

developed
 Reproductive system
 Most are hemaphroditic
 Schistosomes important
exception
 Cross fertilization is preferred
 Some worms practice
hypodermic impregnation!
 Male reproductive systems –
well developed –from testes
to cirrus
 Organization of testes of
taxonomic importance
 Females system – single ovary
 Fertilized eggs undergo
development in the mehlis
glands; vitelline cells produce
chemicals for egg shell
development.
 Reproductive potential

 Most parasites are reproductive factories

 High fecundity is a parasite’ life insurance policy
 Some flukes are able to produce up to 25,000 eggs
per day
Generalized life cycle of flukes
 Eggs

 Usually have an
operculum (operculum
absent in blood flukes)
 Not always fully
embryonated

 Eggs must be passed out

of host

 May be passed in feces

 For terrestrial or aquatic
environs
 Miracidium

 Ciliated larvae which

develop in eggs
 May be fully developed
when passed or develop
outside of host
 If it uses aquatic snail
host, hatch out and seek
snail and penetrate snail
 If it uses terrestrial host,
stay in egg and be eaten
by snail
 Contain germ balls
 Sporocyst
 Sack in snail containing
germ balls
 Sporocysts divide by
polyembryony (asexual
multiplication) and some
transform into next stage
either daughter sporocysts,
rediae or cercariae (fixed
genetically in parasite)
 Final larval stage, must
develop to the next larval
type or leave snail to
continue cycle
 Redia

 Larval stage in snail with

precursor gut and oral
sucker
 Contains germ balls
 Some germ balls develop
into more of the same
and others transform
into next larval stage
(daughter rediae or
cercariae)
 Cercaria

 Motile larvae without germ

ball and immortality
 Leave the snail to find next
host to penetrate or to
encyst in or on another
host or a substrate to be
eaten by final host.
 These usually die within 24
hrs of release if not in
proper place
 Variety of tail
morphologies
 Metacercaria

 This larval stage is the

endstage cercaria, tail is
shed: the juvenile fluke
within a resistant wall
secreted by the fluke
 This may form on the
snail in which the
cercariae were produced,
on vegetation or on/in
some other hosts and it
has to be eaten by final
host for infection to
occurs
 Digenea hibitat diversity

 Digestive tract
 Reproductive tract
 Respiratory tract
 Biliary system
 Vasculature
 Endocrine system
 Urinary system
 Nervous system
 Muscular system