Scolex


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scolex

[′skō‚leks]
(invertebrate zoology)
The head of certain tapeworms, typically having a muscular pad with hooks, and two pairs of lateral suckers.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Scolex

 

the head or anterior portion of the body of a tapeworm, or cestode, by which the parasite attaches itself to the wall of the host’s intestine. The scolex may have any one of various organs of attachment: bothria (longitudinal slits of which there are generally two), sucking disks, and chitinized hooks. In highly developed tapeworms the scolex has four semispheric muscular sucking disks. Many cestodes are characterized by a scolex having sucking disks and a proboscis with hooks. The structure of a scolex, especially of the organs of attachment, is often used in taxonomy for species identification.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
rectangulum and Bathybothrium rectangulum as they also have a similar scolex with bothria; however, they have lateral rather than medial genital openings 35.
Following a 28-day course of prednisolone and albendazole, a further OCT scan revealed that the scolex had resolved while neuroimaging showed that the ring enhancing lesion had disappeared.
Almost all proglottids were not attached to a scolex; only 26 (20 diphyllobothriids and 6 taeniids) proglottids had a scolex attached.
MRI is more sensitive in identifying the scolex within the cyst and in detection of intraventricular and subarachnoid lesion, whereas CT head is more sensitive in identifying calcified granuloma.
Caption: Figure 4: Parasitological study of the cyst fluid showing scolex [right: evaginated scolex, left: invaginated scolex] (Patient1).
Beside these some of the undescribed species of Hymenolepis which main characteristic is strobila (2-5mm length) and scolex bearing 10 hooks was commonly found in duodenum of ducks reported to be transmitted through wild birds.
Mature Asian tapeworms had a heart-shaped scolex with deep long bothria, a flattened attachment disc (Fig.
We found material assigned to Proteocephalidea in the plerocercoid stage, presenting a scolex with four simple suckers; both characteristics correspond to the order (Khalil et al., 1994).
In 19 (46.3%) cases, a definite evidence of cysticercosis was observed in form of fragments of cysticercus bladder wall on cytology (Figure 3) while none of them showed hooklets or scolex. All these cases showed varying proportion of inflammatory response with or without giant cells and granuloma (Figure 4).