solium by Johann August Ephraim Goeze (1731–1793), who observed that the heads of the tapeworm in humans resembled cysts in the musculature of swine. In 1784, the first indications that intermediate hosts were involved in the life cycles of taeniid tapeworms emerged from the detailed studies of T. In 1758, Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, described and named the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, and broad-fish tapeworm, Taenia lata (= Diphyllobothrium latum). He was the first to recognize the important taxonomic structure called the scolex (head) of a tapeworm, and Tyson’s subsequent descriptions laid the foundations for knowledge of the biology of human taeniid tapeworms. The modern scientific study of the human taeniid tapeworms of humans can be traced to the late seventeenth century and the observations of Edward Tyson (1651–1708). Numerous cestodes infect wild and domestic vertebrates in Arkansas, including, but not limited to, those in the genera Anoplocephala, Bothriocephalus, Corallobothrium, Davainea, Dipylidium, Echinococcus, Hymenolepis, Mesocestoides, Moniezia, Oochoristica, Paranoplocephala, Proteocephalus, Spirometra, and especially Taenia. The classification of tapeworms remains ambiguous using classical morphological studies alone, and, although some studies have been done recently using molecular tools, further attention is needed to help clarify their taxonomy. To date, there are more than 5,000 described species that, as endoparasites, infect all vertebrate classes. The subclass Eucestoda is made up of polyzoic (segmented) or monozoic cestodes of varying structure and parasitic in the intestines of vertebrates. The subclass Cestodaria includes monozoic (unsegmented) tapeworms containing only a single set of male and female reproductive organs these are parasitic in the intestinal tract and body cavity of fishes and turtles. Cestodes (tapeworms) include flatworms belonging to the phylum Platyhelminthes, class Cestoidea, subclasses Cestodaria (two orders) and Eucestoda (sixteen orders), and about fifty-nine families.

59 ft tape worm