No, really.
In lab today, we had really beautiful examples of rat tapeworms (hymenolepsis diminuta). The professor put about an inch length on a slide for us to look at, and the first impression on looking through the slide is "Holy heck, it's MOVING!" Which I may have mentioned in the past as a special feature of parasitology lab. It was all the more impressive because through the eyepieces, what was a thin white thread has become a vast field of undulating, scale-like segments. Marvelous to behold, and squirm-inducing.
The odd thing about tapeworms, though, is that as far as parasites go they're pretty innocuous. They are mightily impressive, but they like to just hang out in the lumen of the gut and grow. Granted, they grow pretty impressively. And a couple of really big ones could potentially cause some obstruction. But it's nothing like the damage liver flukes or roundworms do.
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