Cyclophyllidea

(invertebrate zoology) An order of platyhelminthic worms comprising most tapeworms of warm-blooded vertebrates.

The order which includes most tapeworms that inhabit the gut of warm-blooded vertebrates. They are frequently referred to as the Taenioidea. Each worm has a head, or scolex, and a segmented body, called the strobila. The scolex typically has an apical rostellum, or muscular pad and hooks, and two pairs of lateral suckers. New segments are produced immediately posterior to the scolex, so that the oldest segment is at the hind end. As a segment is pushed further from the scolex, the male and female reproductive organs mature and open on the lateral margin. Ova, fertilized by sperm from the same or another segment, gather in a uterus. The ripe terminal segments containing infectious eggs are shed into gut contents of the host.

A number of tapeworms occur in humans and domestic animals, either as adults or immature stages, the metacestodes, but rarely in both stages. See also Coenurosis; Platyhelminthes.

Important order of cestodes in the class Cestoda, parasitic in birds and mammals.

Cyclophyllidea
Scolex of Tenia solium
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Platyhelminthes Class: Cestoda Subclass: Eucestoda Order: Cyclophyllidea
Families
Dipylidiidae Hymenolepididae Taeniidae …

Tapeworms of the order Cyclophyllidea (the cyclophyllid cestodes) are the most important cestode parasites of humans and domesticated animals. All have multiple proglottid "segments," and all have four suckers on their scolex ("head"), though some may have other structures as well. Proglottids of this order have genital openings on one side (except in the family Dilepididae, which has genital openings on both sides), and a compact yolk gland or vitellarium posterior to the ovary.

Families include:

• Dipylidiidae (formerly Dilepididae), the most important member of which is Dipylidium caninum, also called the "cucumber tapeworm" or the "double-pore tapeworm"
• Hymenolepididae, with the most important genus being Hymenolepis.
• Taeniidae, which consists of livestock parasites in the genus Taenia and parasites that encyst in humans of the genus Echinococcus

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