Chinese+Liver+Fluke


 * Common Name: Chinese Liver Fluke **
 * Phylum: ** Platyhelimenthes
 * Scientific Name: **//Opisthorchis sinensis//
 * Class: **Trematoda

**Location:** This parasite lives in the liver of humans, and is found mainly in the common bile duct and gall bladder, feeding on bile.

**Size:** It is around the size of your small fingernail (approximately 10-12mm around).

**Habitat:** Lives in the bile ducts; they live in humans and/or animals

**Living Requirements:** The flukes have flat, leaf-shaped, unsegmented bodies. They normally have a pair of suckers - an oral and a ventral one - which help the fluke hang on to the part of the body in which they live. Flukes have complex life-cycles, usually involving two or more intermediate hosts. The first intermediate host is usually a snail, which is infected by the miracidium a free-swimming stage which hatches out of the egg. The second intermediate "host" may be a range of small animals or even plants. The definitive host usually contracts the infection by ingesting the last intermediate host containing the larval fluke.

**Life Cylce:** The adults live in the bile ducts of the primary host (human). Two intermediate hosts are infected by larvae: snails (the first intermediate host) and fish (second intermediate host). **Human Impact:** Humans contract //Clonorchis// by eating the metacercaria in undercooked freshwater fish.
 * Male and Female Differences: None **

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 * Neat Facts :) **
 * Flatworms have completely different metabolisms to nematodes, so common, over the counter worming tablets directed against nematodes like threadworm will have no effect against these worms, and treatment frequently requires prescription medication.
 * The Chinese liver fluke, Clonorchis sinensis, is typical of the large number of flukes that cause parasitic disease in humans and domesticated animals.
 * Two intermediate hosts are infected by larvae: snails (the first intermediate host) and fish (second intermediate host).
 * Video: **
 * Zookeeper's Sources: **
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