A guide to the shell and starfish galleries : $b (Mollusca, Polyzoa, Brachiopoda, Tunicata, Echinoderma, and Worms)British Museum (Natural History). Department of Zoology
Science
A guide to the shell and starfish galleries : $b (Mollusca, Polyzoa, Brachiopoda, Tunicata, Echinoderma, and Worms)
British Museum (Natural History). Department of Zoology
Echinodermata; Mollusks; Worms
Of the other Cestode parasites mention should specially be made of those
of Fishes; the vulgar notion that the parasites of these animals are
dangerous to man has been shown to be entirely erroneous.
[Illustration:
Fig. 9.
_Limnæa truncatula._
]
The _Flukes_ infest animals of all kinds; that which is most dangerous
to sheep, and the cause of much pecuniary loss (_Distoma hepaticum_), is
selected here as a type; its structure is shown by a large model, and
its life history by a series of diagrams (Figs. 10–13). Here, again, we
have a creature which infests two hosts. If the larvæ which escape from
the sheep fall on wet ground in or near a pool, they make their way to a
small pond-snail (_Limnæa truncatula_, Fig. 9), into the lung-chamber of
which they bore their way. On leaving them the larva may be, and is, too
frequently, eaten by a sheep, and makes its way into the liver of that
animal, where it causes the disease known as the “liver rot.”
The damage done by the liver-fluke may be imagined from the fact that in
the winter of 1879–80 no less than three millions of sheep died of rot
in the United Kingdom; this heavy loss is no doubt largely due to the
immense number of eggs to which a single fluke may give rise. It has
been estimated that every fluke may produce, during its life, several
thousands of eggs; and in one case Prof. A. P. Thomas found as many as
7,400,000 eggs in the gall-bladder of a sheep which was suffering from
rot, and which, at that time, had in its liver about 200 flukes.
The _non-parasitic_ Flat-worms are shown, magnified, in the upper parts
of Cases I. & II. The _Turbellaria_ proper, without any or with a simple
or a branched intestine, but without a vent, are represented by
_Convoluta_ and _Thysanozoon_: the general structure is shown by a
diagram in Case II., which is here reproduced (Fig. 14). _Planaria_,
_Thysanozoon_, and _Bipalium_ serve to illustrate the forms of members
of this group.
The Nemertine Worms (_Nemertinea_), with a straight intestine, with a
vent, and with a proboscis, may attain to a very considerable length;
_Carinella_ and _Lineus_ are represented by large figures, and various
species are shown in spirit. These forms, which used to be very
unsatisfactory to exhibit, on account of the great difficulty of
preserving them complete and uninjured, are now, with improved methods,
very satisfactorily shown, as the specimens purchased from the Marine
Biological Laboratory at Plymouth prove.
[Illustration:
Stages in the life history of the Fluke.
Fig. 10. Egg of Fluke, showing the operculum and the contained
yolk-spheres. Magnified 340 diams.
Fig. 11. An embryo forcing its way by its boring-papilla (_p_) into
the wall of the lung of a Snail (_e.p._) Magnified about 340 diams.
Fig. 12. A young _Rédia_ (natural size, ½ millimetre or ¹⁄₅₀ inch):
_pl._, pharynx; _g_, contained germs; _p_, characteristic posterior
processes of the _Rédia_.
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