Liver flukes are parasites. They are a polyphyletic group of trematodes (phylum Platyhelminthes). Adults of liver flukes are localized in the liver of various mammals, including humans. These flatworms can occur in bile ducts, gallbladder, and liver parenchyma. They feed on blood. Adult flukes produce eggs which are passed into the intestine.
Examples include:
- Clonorchis sinensis (the "Chinese liver fluke" or the "Oriental liver fluke")
- Dicrocoelium dendriticum (lancet liver fluke)
- Dicrocoelium hospes
- Fasciola hepatica (the "sheep liver fluke")
- Fascioloides magna (the "giant liver fluke")
- Fasciola gigantica
- Fasciola jacksoni
- Metorchis conjunctus
- Metorchis albidus
- Protofasciola robusta
- Parafasciolopsis fasciomorphae
- Opisthorchis viverrini (Southeast Asian liver fluke)
- Opisthorchis felineus (cat liver fluke).
- Opisthorchis guayaquilensis
Famous quotes containing the word liver:
“A life-worshipper’s philosophy is comprehensive.... He is at one moment a positivist and at another a mystic: now haunted by the thought of death ... and now a Dionysian child of nature; now a pessimist and now, with a change of lover or liver or even the weather, an exuberant believer that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)