DICROCOELIDAE

DICROCOELIDAE

<p align="CENTER"><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>DICROCOELIDAE</b></span></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY"><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The Dicrocoelids are delicate, elongate, and quite beautiful trematodes that are located in the bile ducts, gall bladder, or pancreatic ducts. The adults tend to be characterized by testes that tend to be rather anteriorly placed, vitellaria that are localized to the lateral portions of the middle of the body, and the uterus which is filled with eggs tends to fill most of the posterior portion of the body. The egg when passed in the feces is thick shelled and embryonated. In the life cycle of this parasite, the egg is eaten by a land snail. Within the snail the cercariae develop and possess a stylet. The cercariae that leave the snail must then typically enter an arthropod host. Some of the dicrocoelids, such as </span></span><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Platynosomum</i></span></span><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>concinnum</i></span></span><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-size: medium;">, utilize paratenic hosts to transfer the snail from the arthropod to the mammalian final host</span></span><span style="color: #000000;">.</span></p>