Small and large flatworms are ubiquitous. And indeed, far from all the living creatures around us can be seen with the naked eye – those that are smaller can sometimes not be found without a microscope. Flatworms are basically just that – small, amazingly tenacious and perfectly adapted by nature to survive. They are ubiquitous, and many of them successfully parasitize other species.
Interesting facts about flatworms
- At the moment, scientists know about 12 thousand species of flatworms, but from time to time time, new ones are opened.
- One of the largest flatworms belonging to the class of tapeworms is the bovine tapeworm parasite. It can reach a length of 10 meters. However, some parasites, in particular, flat tapeworm, can grow up to 25 meters in the human body.
- Many tapeworms suck food with the entire surface of the body, since most of them do not have mouths.
- Planarian flatworm cells are able to actually clone the worm organism again from a single cell, even if 99% of the body has been destroyed.
- In a sheep herd of 35,000 heads, it has been calculated that the total in the organisms of sheep flatworms reached 3 tons.
- If left untreated, the tapeworm can live in the human intestine for up to 20 years.
- The vast majority of flatworm species do not exceed 1 millimeter in length.
- In an unfavorable environment, planarian flatworms fall apart , and then, when conditions become more suitable for life, they unite again.
- Among flatworms, most species are hermaphrodites.
- Eating each other, some of them species can assimilate information that was known to individuals eaten.
- Schistosome flatworms are monogamous. They mate for life when the female settles in a pocket on the male’s body.
- Most species of flatworms can turn themselves inside out without harm to themselves.
- Over the course of a lifetime, the bovine tapeworm excretes more 11 billion eggs.
- The life cycle of many flatworm species begins in water bodies where their larvae live, even if they subsequently parasitize mammals.