Tapeworms are hermaphroditic; each segment has two sets of male and female reproductive organs, which will fill the segment with fertile eggs as the segment is pushed back from the neck. When the segment is full of eggs, it detaches itself from the adult tapeworm and is passed in the feces (Figure 40).
Do tapeworms reproduce inside you?
An adult dwarf tapeworm can live for 4-6 weeks. However, once you are infected, the dwarf tapeworm may reproduce inside the body (autoinfection) and continue the infection.
How do tapeworms produce eggs?
Humans or animals then consume the cysts and the cysts matures into a tapeworm. The worm then sheds eggs through the loss of body segments in the feces of the host and the lifecycle is complete. Each body segment can contain up to 100,000 eggs.
Does tapeworm reproduce by regeneration?
Tapeworms grow at rates rivaling the fastest-growing metazoan tissues. To propagate they shed large parts of their body; to replace these lost tissues they regenerate proglottids (segments) as part of normal homeostasis.
How do tapeworms have babies?
If a child or adult has an adult tapeworm, they will pass segments filled with eggs in their stools. These eggs are then released onto soil and eaten by cattle or pigs, in which they hatch, enter the bloodstream, and form cysts in the meat, completing the parasitic life cycle.
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