Cestoda
Tapeworms
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General Description
Attachments cling to intestinal wall: pork tapeworm
The headlike segment of a pork tapeworm attaches to a host's intestinal wall using suckers and sometimes hooks.
"A typical species, such as the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium), consists of an anterior region known as the scolex, armed with suckers and sometimes hooks, too, for attachment to its host's internal intestinal wall…" (Shuker 2001:166)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Shuker, KPN. 2001. The Hidden Powers of Animals: Uncovering the Secrets of Nature. London: Marshall Editions Ltd. 240 p.
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GeneralDescription
The cestodes, or tapeworms, differ in a number of ways from other flatworms. Their bodies are long and flat, made up of many segments called proglottids. Each proglottid is a reproductive unit, essentially a factory to produce gametes. Adults lack cilia and their surface is a tegument (as in monogeneans and trematodes), but in cestodes the tegument is covered with tiny projections, microvilli, which increase its surface area and thereby its ability to absorb nutrients from a host. Digestive tracts are absent completely. At the tapeworm's anterior end is a specialized segment called a scolex, which is usually covered with hooks or suckers and serves to anchor it to the host.
All of the 5000 or so known species of tapeworms are endoparasites. Most require at least two hosts, with the host of the adult tapeworm a vertebrate. Intermediate hosts are often invertebrates. A number of tapeworm species inhabit humans.
Source:
Hickman, C.P. and L. S. Roberts. 1994. Animal Diversity. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, IA.
Brusca, R. C., and G. J. Brusca. Invertebrates. 1990. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
Body surface gathers nutrients: tapeworms
The body surface of a tapeworm absorbs nutrients directly from a host's intestines via an absorptive membrane.
"Also, whereas flukes have guts, tapeworms have none, so they must absorb their nutrients directly through their body surface from the intestine of their primary host (normally a vertebrate)." (Shuker 2001:166)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Shuker, KPN. 2001. The Hidden Powers of Animals: Uncovering the Secrets of Nature. London: Marshall Editions Ltd. 240 p.
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