Echinostoma revolutum, known also as Trematode Fluke, is such an interesting animal to scientists and regular people. This flatworm can grow around 3mm (1 ½ in) or smaller in length. They tend to have a yellow-orange coloration to them, but they can also have a pinkish tone. Flukes can adapt to different hosts, such as ducks, geese, pigeons, chickens, and humans (olympusmicro.com). They have been found also in snails and frogs. These animals have the shape of a worm, but a flatworm, and have yellow-orange tones.

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Flukes’ eggs usually hatch in freshwater, where they can find a host, for Echinostoma revolutum is an endoparasite. They do well in this envirement by having the water to disguise them, and their hosts living or landing here. Trematode Flukes are usually found in small lakes or freshwater rivers in the United States and Europe, but only parts of them.

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Echinostoma revolutum are unknown to how many there are. There are many different kinda of flukes that it’s a little hard to tell how many there are. Some species are said to be growing, but others are slowly becoming less and less. But most Flukes are growing. The change in their lifetime isn’t much. Everything is just the same for them. Flukes, just like every living thing, have a role in the food ‘web.’ Their role in the food web is to eat off of their host. They are able to get their food easily because there aren’t very many parasites that live off of the animals flukes do. That means that they don’t have to fight for food. There are many other flukes that would want the same host, and sometimes they would all eat off the same host. But they rarely have to fight off anything other each other for a host. The Fluke’s only predators are humans. We can get the flatworm into our body, and we can have them removed. There aren’t many ways for this animal to get away from being removed from the body, but they can stay in your intestine. Humans don’t even try to eat them, for they are very small to even be seen. That is why they only have one predator: us.

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What was really interesting that I found out about Flukes was that they can live in your intestine like many other flatworms. I hadn’t even heard of this animal before the report. It was exciting to learn about a new animal. What I learned was that Flukes don’t intend to use us as hosts. They just find their way into us and think that we’re one of their usual hosts. It was really interesting to find out that there can be something inside of us right now, but we don’t even know it. Echinostoma revolutum, Trematode Fluke, is an amazing flatworm.

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Author: Ashten Y

Published: 03/2008

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Sources:

unibielefeld.de/biologie/Didaktik/zoologie/html_eng/galerie_Ls_eng.html medscape.com/viewarticle/534949 creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/36/36_4/trematodes.html olympusmicro.com/micd/galleries/darkfield/echinostomarevolutum1.html society.kisti.re.kr/~kspa/kjp/abstracts/1990_235.html Life Science-Holt Rinehart Winston page 432 under ‘Flatworms’

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