Heterophyes heterophyes

• Common Name of H. heterophyes

  Intestinal Fish Fluke
• Disease Caused by H. heterophyes

  Heterophyiasis
• Habitat of H. heterophyes

  Small intestines (in villi)
• Intermediate Host of H. heterophyes

  1st Intermediate Host of H. heterophyes: Snails

  • Cerithidea cingulata (Philippines) – girdled horn shell, pest in milkfish ponds
  • Semisulcospira reiniana (Japan)

  2nd Intermediate Host of H. heterophyes: Fresh/Brackish water fish

  • Mugil cephalus (Flathead gray mullet)
  • Oreochromis niloticus (Nile tilapia)
  • Aphanius fasciatus (Mediterranean killifish)
  • Acanthogobius sp. (Yellowfin goby)
• Final Host of H. heterophyes

  Humans, fish-eating mammals, birds
• Diagnostic Stage of H. heterophyes

  Embryonated eggs in feces
• Infective Stage of H. heterophyes

  Metacercariae
• Mode of Transmission of H. heterophyes

  Ingestion of raw/undercooked freshwater fish
• Treatment for H. heterophyes

  Praziquantel
• Egg Characteristics of H. heterophyes:

  • Thick-shelled
  • Operculated with shoulders
  • No abopercular knob
  • Contains developing miracidium
• Adult Characteristics of H. heterophyes

  • <2mm in length
  • Greyish in color
  • Elongated, oval, or pyriform shape
  • Covered in fine, scaly spines
  • Three suckers: oral, ventral, genital (gonotyl)
  • Uterus full of eggs
• Additional Notes on H. heterophyes:

  • "Small but terrible" – smallest and deadliest fluke
  • Discovered by Theodor Maximillian Bilharz during an autopsy of an Egyptian mummy