Parasites come in all shapes and sizes! There are single-celled parasites which you can’t see in the gut without a microscope. Parasitic roundworms are animals and look a bit like earthworms, but smoother and often paler/white. These can be tiny (1-2mm) all the way up to 30cm depending on the species. Tapeworms look like pieces of tape like the name suggests. Very long and flattened shape with a body that comes apart in segments.
So they can look pretty different!
As Erin has said, there are many different parasites which affect the gut of many different species of animals, including humans. They range from very small (needing a microscope to see them) to very large. A small parasite which affects dogs is Giardia (which also affects people) which is pear shaped and less than a millimetre long, you’d need to put a sample of poo under the microscope to see it . A dog infected with giardia is likely to have diarrhoea, may have pain in their abdomen (although of course the dog can’t tell us this directly, unlike a human), At the other end of the scale, there are some very large tapeworms, which are made up of segments – although I have to admit that I’ve never seen one myself, it’s reported that sperm whales can have a type of tapeworm which is up to 40 metres long, which sounds pretty gross, doesn’t it? I’ve never worked with sea mammals so I’m not sure how a sperm whale tapeworm infection would be diagnosed or whether it would be something that’s found during a post mortem (for example, when an animal is washed up on the beach and the scientists are trying to work out why the animal has died)
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melissau commented on :
As Erin has said, there are many different parasites which affect the gut of many different species of animals, including humans. They range from very small (needing a microscope to see them) to very large. A small parasite which affects dogs is Giardia (which also affects people) which is pear shaped and less than a millimetre long, you’d need to put a sample of poo under the microscope to see it . A dog infected with giardia is likely to have diarrhoea, may have pain in their abdomen (although of course the dog can’t tell us this directly, unlike a human), At the other end of the scale, there are some very large tapeworms, which are made up of segments – although I have to admit that I’ve never seen one myself, it’s reported that sperm whales can have a type of tapeworm which is up to 40 metres long, which sounds pretty gross, doesn’t it? I’ve never worked with sea mammals so I’m not sure how a sperm whale tapeworm infection would be diagnosed or whether it would be something that’s found during a post mortem (for example, when an animal is washed up on the beach and the scientists are trying to work out why the animal has died)