Digenean
Digenea (Gr. ''Dis'' – double, ''Genos'' – race) is a class of trematodes in the Platyhelminthes phylum, consisting of parasitic flatworms (known as ''flukes'') with a syncytial tegument and, usually, two suckers, one ventral and one oral. Adults commonly live within the digestive tract, but occur throughout the organ systems of all classes of vertebrates. Once thought to be related to the Monogenea, it is now recognised that they are closest to the Aspidogastrea and that the Monogenea are more closely allied with the Cestoda. Around 6,000 species have been described to date. Morphology Key features Characteristic features of the Digenea include a syncytial tegument; that is, a tegument where the junctions between cells are broken down and a single continuous cytoplasm surrounds the entire animal. A similar tegument is found in other members of the Neodermata; a group of platyhelminths comprising the Digenea, Aspidogastrea, Monogenea and Cestoda. Digeneans possess a vermifor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aspidogastrea
The Aspidogastrea (Ancient Greek: ' “shield”, ' “stomach/pouch”) is a small group of flukes comprising about 80 species. It is a subclass of the trematoda, and sister group to the Digenea. Species range in length from approximately one millimeter to several centimeters. They are parasites of freshwater and marine molluscs and vertebrates (cartilaginous and bony fishes and turtles). Maturation may occur in the mollusc or vertebrate host. None of the species has any economic importance, but the group is of very great interest to biologists because it has several characters which appear to be archaic. Morphology Shared characteristics Shared characteristics of the group are a large ventral disc with a large number of small alveoli ("suckerlets") or a row of suckers and a tegument with short protrusions, so-called "microtubercles". Larval physiology Larvae of some species have ciliated patches. Those of ''Multicotyle purvisi'' have four patches on the anterior side of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Platyhelminthes
The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths (from the Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrates. Unlike other bilaterians, they are acoelomates (having no body cavity), and have no specialized circulatory and respiratory organs, which restricts them to having flattened shapes that allow oxygen and nutrients to pass through their bodies by diffusion. The digestive cavity has only one opening for both ingestion (intake of nutrients) and egestion (removal of undigested wastes); as a result, the food cannot be processed continuously. In traditional medicinal texts, Platyhelminthes are divided into Turbellaria, which are mostly non-parasitic animals such as planarians, and three entirely parasitic groups: Cestoda, Trematoda and Monogenea; however, since the turbellarians have since been proven not to be monop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Opecoelidae
Opecoelidae is a family of trematodes. It is the largest digenean family with over 90 genera and nearly 900 species, almost solely found in marine and freshwater teleost fishes.Bray, Rodney A., Cribb, Thomas H., Littlewood, D. Timothy J. & Waeschenbach, Andrea (2016). The molecular phylogeny of the digenean family Opecoelidae Ozaki, 1925 and the value of morphological characters, with the erection of a new subfamily. ''Folia Parasitologica'', 63, 1–13. It was considered by Bray ''et al.'' to belong in the superfamily Opecoeloidea Ozaki, 1925 or the Brachycladioidea Odhner, 1905. Genera Family Opecoelidae *Subfamily Bathycreadiinae Martin, Huston, Cutmore & Cribb, 2018Martin, S. B., Huston, D. C., Cutmore, S. C. & Cribb, T. H. (2018). A new classification for deep-sea opecoelid trematodes based on the phylogenetic position of some unusual taxa from shallow-water, herbivorous fishes off south-west Australia. ''Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society'', 186(2), 385–413. **Genu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flatworm
The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths (from the Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrates. Unlike other bilaterians, they are acoelomates (having no body cavity), and have no specialized circulatory and respiratory organs, which restricts them to having flattened shapes that allow oxygen and nutrients to pass through their bodies by diffusion. The digestive cavity has only one opening for both ingestion (intake of nutrients) and egestion (removal of undigested wastes); as a result, the food cannot be processed continuously. In traditional medicinal texts, Platyhelminthes are divided into Turbellaria, which are mostly non- parasitic animals such as planarians, and three entirely parasitic groups: Cestoda, Trematoda and Monogenea; however, since the turbellarians have since been proven no ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Monogenea
Monogeneans are a group of ectoparasitic flatworms commonly found on the skin, gills, or fins of fish. They have a direct lifecycle and do not require an intermediate host. Adults are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female reproductive structures.L.A. Tubbsa et al. (2005). "Effects of temperature on fecundity in vitro, egg hatching and reproductive development of ''Benedenia seriolae'' and ''Zeuxapta seriolae'' (Monogenea) parasitic on yellowtail kingfish Seriola lalandi". ''International Journal for Parasitology''(35), 315–327. Some monogeneans are oviparous (egg-laying) and some are viviparous (live-bearing). Oviparous varieties release eggs into the water. Viviparous varieties release larvae, which immediately attach to another host. The genus ''Gyrodactylus'' is an example of a viviparous variety, while the genus ''Dactylogyrus'' is an example of an oviparous variety. Signs and symptoms Freshwater fish that become infected with this parasite become le ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trematoda
Trematoda is a class of flatworms known as flukes. They are obligate internal parasites with a complex life cycle requiring at least two hosts. The intermediate host, in which asexual reproduction occurs, is usually a snail. The definitive host, where the flukes sexually reproduce, is a vertebrate. Infection by trematodes can cause disease in all five traditional vertebrate classes: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. Etymology Trematodes are commonly referred to as flukes. This term can be traced back to the Old English name for flounder, and refers to the flattened, rhomboidal shape of the organisms. Taxonomy There are 18,000 to 24,000 known species of trematodes, divided into two subclasses — the Aspidogastrea and the Digenea. Aspidogastrea is the smaller subclass, comprising 61 species. These flukes mainly infect bivalves and bony fishes.https://www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3918.3.2 Digenea — which comprise the majority of trematodes — are f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mouth
In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on the outside by the lips and inside by the pharynx. In tetrapods, it contains the tongue and, except for some like birds, teeth. This cavity is also known as the buccal cavity, from the Latin ''bucca'' ("cheek"). Some animal phylum, phyla, including arthropods, molluscs and chordates, have a complete digestive system, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other. Which end forms first in ontogeny is a criterion used to classify bilaterian animals into protostomes and deuterostomes. Development In the first Multicellular organism, multicellular animals, there was probably no mouth or gut and food particles were engulfed by the cells on the exterior surface by a process known as endocytosis. The particles became enclosed in vacuoles in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oral
The word oral may refer to: Relating to the mouth * Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid **Oral administration of medicines ** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or oral test), a practice in many schools and disciplines in which an examiner poses questions to the student in spoken form ** Oral hygiene, practices involved in cleaning the mouth and preventing disease ** Oral medication **Oral rehydration therapy, a simple treatment for dehydration associated with diarrhea **Oral sex, sexual activity involving the stimulation of genitalia by use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. **Oral stage, a human development phase in Freudian developmental psychology **Oral tradition, cultural material and tradition transmitted orally from one generation to another **Oralism, the education of deaf students through oral language by using lip reading, and mimicking of mouth shapes and breathing patterns **Speech commu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ventral
Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position provides a definition of what is at the front ("anterior"), behind ("posterior") and so on. As part of defining and describing terms, the body is described through the use of anatomical planes and anatomical axes. The meaning of terms that are used can change depending on whether an organism is bipedal or quadrupedal. Additionally, for some animals such as invertebrates, some terms may not have any meaning at all; for example, an animal that is radially symmetrical will have no anterior surface, but can still have a description that a part is close to the middle ("proximal") or further from the middle ("distal"). International organisations have determined vocabularies that are often used as standard vocabularies for subdisciplines of anatomy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neodermata
Neodermata is a clade of rhabditophoran flatworms containing the parasitic groups Trematoda, Monogenea and Cestoda. Description All neodermatans are parasites, in many groups having a free-swimming larval stage. The most striking feature uniting all neodermatans is that the ciliated epidermis (typical of most flatworms) is cast off in adult worms, being replaced by a syncytium called tegument or ''neodermis''. Other characters found in all neodermatans are related to the anatomy of the protonephridium and the rootlets of epidermal locomotory cilia. Phylogeny Currently, the monophyly of Neodermata is undisputed, being supported by both morphological and molecular data. It is clear that they evolved from free-living flatworms (turbellarians), but their sister-group was for a long time a matter of debate. The first attempts to reconstruct the phylogeny of flatworms, based on morphological evidence, considered Rhabdocoela Rhabdocoela is an order of flatworms in the class Rhab ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sucker (zoology)
A sucker in zoology refers to a specialised attachment organ of an animal. It acts as an adhesion device in parasitic worms, several flatworms, cephalopods, certain fishes, amphibians, and bats. It is a muscular structure for suction on a host or substrate. In parasitic annelids, flatworms and roundworms, suckers are the organs of attachment to the host tissues. In tapeworms and flukes, they are a parasitic adaptation for attachment on the internal tissues of the host, such as intestines and blood vessels. In roundworms and flatworms they serve as attachment between individuals particularly during mating. In annelids, a sucker can be both a functional mouth and a locomotory organ. The structure and number of suckers are often used as basic taxonomic diagnosis between different species, since they are unique in each species. In tapeworms there are two distinct classes of suckers, namely "bothridia" for true suckers, and " bothria" for false suckers. In digeneal flukes there a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Acetabulum (morphology)
Acetabulum (plural acetabula) in invertebrate zoology is a saucer-shaped organ of attachment in some annelid worms (like leech) and flatworms. It is a specialised sucker for parasitic adaptation in trematodes by which the worms are able to attach on the host. In annelids, it is basically a locomotory organ for attaching to a substratum. The name also applies to the suction appendage on the arms of cephalopod molluscs such as squid, octopus, cuttlefish, ''Nautilus'', etc. Etymology Acetabulum literally means "a small saucer for vinegar". It is derived from two Latin words ''acetum'', meaning "vinegar", and ''-bulum'', a suffix denoting "saucer" or "vessel" or "bowl". The name is used because of the saucer-like structure in the invertebrates. Structure Annelids In leeches, acetabulum refers to the prominent posterior sucker at the extreme end of the body. In fact it forms a head-like structure, while the actual head is relatively small. It is a thick disc-shaped muscular sys ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |