Platyhelminthes!

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These are dorsally flattened bilaterians without coelome or definitive anus, with no circulatory, skeletal, or muscular structure, and flame-cell protonephridia. In layman's terms, they are "flatworms."

I think they're super cool. There are non-parasitic ones that are called planarians and I kept some as pets for a while, and the most exciting day of last year was waking up and finding off that one of them had undergone binary fission and asexually reproduced.

But the parasitic ones are nasty. I've been reading a lot about flukes lately and how they cause terrible problems like Scistosomiasis in third-world countries. I really want to do something to help the people in Africa dying from parasitic infections, because I get so excited about this, but at the same time I wonder if killing parasites would be like killing insects, for me: unbearable. I'm always better at sympathy for bugs than I am at empathy for humans, but schistosomes are wrecking the world in horrible ways. I feel a bit torn.

I personally have no problem w/ killing parasitic worms & such b/c they suck out life of people & animals anyway (something has to go, that's the cycle of life me thinks). I personally wouldn't discuss platyhelminthes much b/c most people my age are only interested in their reproductive habits (especially of the hermaphroditic ones) . Having conversations on such worms in general is difficult for me b/c most people I have them w/ say something perverse in reference to them . I do find most animals interesting though. You read about all the dying/rare/endangered/ now extinct amphibian species in NG?

p.s. Never use the show Full House for proper references to animal phyla

Planaria are cool, but the "cross eyes" always give me the shivers.

Even the parasites have fascinating life cycles, but anything that causes disease and does not provide food or help anything I have no problem with killing. It would be good to make shistosomiasis extinct.

Are you going to do any experiments with your planarians?

I'm interested in all animals, but I have never had the fortune to see a flatworm. Where did you find your planarians? I know a lot of them live in freshwater, but I've never seen one in a pond or a river.

I like to say the name.


and worms have the most interesting reproduction habits

Only an aspie would waste sympathy on a tapeworn.