Dicrocoelium+Dendriticum

= Dicrocoelium dendriticum = Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Platyhelminthes Class: Trematoda Order: Plagiorchiida Family: Dicrocoeliidae Genus: Dicrocoelium Species: D. dendriticum


 * Dicrocoelium dendriticum**, the **Lancet liver fluke** is a parasite fluke that tends to live in cattle or other grazing mammals. Due to the highly specific nature of this parasite’s life cycle, human infections are generally rare. Ruminants(mammal of the order [|Artiodactyla] that digests plant-based food) such as cows and sheep are usually the definitive host, but humans and other herbivorous mammals can also serve as definitive hosts through ingestion of infected ants.




 * Life Cycle:**

Main Host(Cattle or other grazing mammal)
 * Dicroelium dendriticum spends its life cycle inside the liver of it's host. After mating, the eggs are excreted in the feces

Terrestrial Snails(First Intermediate Host)
 * 1) eats the feces, and becomes infected by the larval parasites
 * 2) The larvae (or cercariae) drill through the wall of the gut and settle in its digestive tract, where they develop into a juvenile stage.
 * 3) The snail tries to defend itself by walling the parasites off in cysts, which it then excretes(slime) and leaves behind in the grass.

Ants(Second Intermediate Host)
 * 1) using the trail of slime as a source of moisture, the ant swallows cyst loaded with hundreds of juvenile lancet fluke
 * 2) The parasites enter the gut and then drift through its body.
 * 3) Most of the cercariae encyst in the [|hemocoel] of the ant and mature into [|metacercariae], but one moves to the sub-esophageal ganglion (a cluster of nerve cells underneath the esophagus)
 * 4) There, the parasite then takes control of the ant's actions by manipulating these nerves.
 * 5) As evening approaches and the air cools, the infested ant is drawn away from other members of the colony and upward to the top of a blade of grass. Once there, it clamps its mandibles onto the top of the blade and stays there until dawn.
 * 6) Afterward, it goes back to its normal activity at the ant colony. (If the host ant were to be subjected to the heat of the direct sun, it would die along with the parasite)
 * 7) Steps Five and Six are repeated until the ant is ingested
 * 8) AND THUS THE CYCLE BEGINS AGAIN

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