Proglottids leave the body through the anus and fall to the ground, where they may be eaten with grass by a grazing animal such as a cow. This animal then becomes an intermediate host, the oncosphere boring through the gut wall and migrating to another part of the body such as the muscle. Here it encysts, forming a cysticercus. The parasite completes its lifecycle when the intermediate host passes on the parasite to the definitive host, usually when the definitive host eats contaminated parts of the intermediate host, for example a human eating raw or undercooked meat. Another two-phase lifecycle is exhibited by Anoplocephala perfoliata, the definitive host being an equine and the intermediate host an oribatid mite.Diphyllobothrium exhibits a more complex, three-phase lifecycle. If the eggs are laid in water, they develop into free-swimming oncosphere larvae. After ingestion by a suitable freshwater crustacean such as a copepod, the first intermediate host, they develop into procercoid larvae. When the copepod is eaten by a suitable second intermediate host, typically a minnow or other small freshwater fish, the procercoid larvae migrate into the fishs flesh where they develop into plerocercoid larvae. These are the infective stages for the mammalian definitive host. If the small fish is eaten by a predatory fish, its muscles too can become infected.Schistocephalus solidus is another three-phase example. The intermediate hosts are copepods and small fish, and the definitive hosts are waterbirds. This species has been used to demonstrate that cross-fertilisation produces a higher infective success rate than self-fertilisation.
Cestoda is a class of parasitic worms in the flatworm phylum (Platyhelminthes). Most of the species—and the best-known—are those in the subclass Eucestoda; they are ribbon-like worms as adults, known as tapeworms. Their bodies consist of many similar units known as proglottids—essentially packages of eggs which are regularly shed into the environment to infect other organisms. Species of the other subclass, Cestodaria, are mainly fish infecting parasites. All cestodes are parasitic; many have complex life histories, including a stage in a definitive (main) host in which the adults grow and reproduce, often for years, and one or two intermediate stages in which the larvae develop in other hosts. Typically the adults live in the digestive tracts of vertebrates, while the larvae often live in the bodies of other animals, either vertebrates or invertebrates. For example, Diphyllobothrium has at least two intermediate hosts, a crustacean and then one or more freshwater fish; its definitive host is a mammal. Some cestodes are host-specific, while others are parasites of a wide variety of hosts. Some six thousand species have been described; probably all vertebrates can host at least one species. The adult tapeworm has a scolex (head), a short neck, and a strobila (segmented body) formed of proglottids. Tapeworms anchor themselves to the inside of the intestine of their host using their scolex, which typically has hooks, suckers, or both. They have no mouth, but absorb nutrients directly from the hosts gut.