Taxonomy: f. Dilepididae
Animal: Dipylidium caninum (epidemiology) 5 03.jpg
Sites: Gut
Comment:
Dipylidium caninum scolex - 250 - 500 microns wide, 4 deeply cupped oval suckers and a club shaped rostellum with 30 - 150 spines arranged in 1 to 7 circlets. Each spine or hook can protrude to a length of 185 microns or be completly retracted into the scolex. The number of circlets depends on age and trauma. D. caninum is the common tapeworm of dogs and cats and occasionally humans. Cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis felis are the intermediate hosts. Other flea species have been reported to also act as intermediate hosts for this tapeworm but experimentally only Xenopsylla cheopis was found to be a suitable alternative intermendiate host; Ctenocephalides canis (dog flea) and Nosopsyllus londinensis were not - possibly due to their physiology and/or the strong cellular immune reaction that was observed (Pugh RE PhD thesis)

First Picture | Previous Picture | Next Picture | Last Picture