Resources:

Background information on Platyhelminthes:

1. Introduction of Platyhelminthes from the University of California at Berkley
2. Platyhelminthes resource page from Discoverlife.org
3. Platyhelminthes resource page from Animal Diversity Web
4. Platyhelminthes resource page from Encyclopedia of Life
   

Research

1. Parasitic flatworms associated with eating raw seafood
   This is a 2009 study that investigated the incidence of a parasitic flatworm (tapeworm) that you can get from eating raw seafood.
   Diphyllobothriasis Associated with Eating Raw Pacific Salmon

Parasitic Life cycles

Diphyllobothriasis Tapeworm Life Cycle:

1. Eggs are passed out of an infected human through feces
2. Eggs become embryonated in the water
3. Host 1:
   Coracidia hatch from eggs and are ingested by a crustacean
4. Procercoid larvae of the tapeworm enters the body cavity of the crustacean
5. Host 2:
   The infected crustacean is consumed by a fish and the procercoid larvae are released from the crustacean and develop into plerocercoid larvae
6. Host 3:
   A larger predatory fish eats the smaller infected fish and becomes infected
   
7. Host 4:
   Humans eat raw or undercooked infected fish and develop in the small intestine.
   

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Fascioliasis fluke life cycle

1. Infected mammal (cattle, sheep, or human) releases eggs into the water via feces
   
2. Unembroynated eggs develop into embryonated eggs in the water and hatch into miracidia
3. The miracidia infects a snail and within the snail tissue the fluke passes through the following three stages: i) sporocysts, ii) rediae, and iii) cercariae
4. The cercariae swims out of the snail and develops into a metacercariae on a water plant where it infects a mammal (cattle, sheep, human) when the plant material is consumed.
   

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