CHAP. XX LIFE-HISTORY AND STRUCTURE 489 



which are smaller than the females, are more active. They move 

 about in search of a mate. Further, should the host die, both 

 sexes, after the manner of parasites, attempt to leave the body. 

 Like most animals who live entirely in the dark they develop 

 no pigment, and have a whitish, blanched appearance. 



The only species of Pentastomid which has any economic 

 importance is Linguatula taenioides of Lamarck, which is found 

 in the nose of the dog, and much more rarely in the same 

 position in the horse, mule, goat, sheep, and man. It is a com- 

 paratively rare parasite, but occurred in about 1 per cent of the 

 630 dogs in which it was sought at the laboratory of Alfort, near 

 Paris, and in 5 out of 60 dogs examined at Toulouse. The 

 symptoms caused by the presence of these parasites are not 

 usually very severe, though cases have been recorded where they 

 have caused asphyxia. The larval stages occur in the rabbit, 

 sheep, ox, deer, guinea-pig, hare, rat, horse, camel, and man, and 

 by their wandering through the tissues may set up peritonitis 

 and other troubles. 



As in the Cestoda, which they so closely resemble in their 

 life-history, the nomenclature of the Pentastomids has been com- 

 plicated by their double life. For long the larval form of L. 

 taenioides was known by different names in different hosts, e.g. 

 Pentastoma denticulatum, Eud., when found in the goat, P. 

 serratibtn, Prohlich, when found in the hare, P. emarginatum 

 when found in the guinea-pig, and so on. In the systematic 

 section of this article some of the species mentioned are known 

 in the adult state, some in the larval, and in only a few has the 

 life-history been fully worked out. 



Structure.'^ — The body of a Pentastomid is usually white, 

 though in the living condition it may be tinged red by the 

 colour of the blood upon which it lives. The anterior end, 

 which bears the mouth and the hooks (Fig. 256), has no rings; 

 this has been termed the cephalothorax. The rest of the body, 

 sometimes called the abdomen, is ringed, and each annulus is 

 divided into an anterior half dotted with the pores of certain 

 epidermal glands and a hinder part of the ring in which these 

 are absent. 



On the ventral surface of. the cephalothorax, in the middle 



1 This description is mainly based on the account of P. teretiusculus given by 

 Spencer, Quart. J. Micr. Sci. xx.xiv., 1893, p. 1. 



