What are the peculiar features that you find in parasitic platyhelminthes?
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Following are the peculiar features of parasitic platyhelminthes:
(i) The thick tegument (body covering) resistant to the host’s digestive enzymes and anti-toxins.
(ii)Loss of locomotory organs.
(iii)Digestive organs are absent in tapeworms because digested and semidigested food of the host is directly absorbed’ through the body surface.
(iv) Reproductive system is best developed in parasitic flatworms.
(v)Parasitic flatworms, such as liver fluke and tapeworms perform anaerobic respiration.
(vi)They possess a considerable osmotic adaptability, as they can successfully live in different media.
The listed below are few special features or characters of Platyhelminthes -
i) Their body is of flat shaped in dorsal and ventral positions.
ii) They possesses symmetry which is of bilateral type and also are triploblastic.
iii) They do not have body cavity or coelom in them. Therefore, they are regarded as acoelomates.
iv) The parasitic ones have special structures called hooks.
v) Platyhelminthes also possesses flame cells. These cells aids in osmoregulation and also in their excretion.
vi) Examples are : Tapeworm and Liver fluke.