Friday Parasite: Tongue Worm Redux

Back in September I wrote about the life history of pentastomids – a group of animals also known as tongue worms – and touched briefly on some of the problems that can crop up when members of the genus Linguatula accidentally infect humans. Humans are not usually a host for these animals (they're typically found in the lungs and nasal cavities of carnivorous vertebrates), but accidents happen. And where Lingulata tends to stay inside the nasal passageways, there's another group of tongue worms that gets around more.  Larval worms of the genus Armillifer, like the one pictured here, migrate much further afield, encysting themselves into the liver, abdominal wall, and (as pictured here) the diaphragm.


Image by Dr. Daniel Connor
from D.H. Connor and F.W. Chandler (eds) 1997.  Pathology of Infectious Diseases. Appleton & Lange: Stanford, Conn.