";s:4:"text";s:2903:" Definitive host: The definitive host is the one in which a parasite reaches sexual maturity and undergoes reproduction. Trematoda is a class within the phylum Platyhelminthes.It includes two groups of parasitic flatworms, known as flukes.. intermediate host: [ hōst ] 1. an animal or plant that harbors and provides sustenance for another organism (the parasite). Larvae mature and can persist, sometimes for the enti\൲e life of the host. It is mostly a vertebrate.
‘That the mosquito was the intermediate host of the filarial parasite was a momentous discovery in 1877.’ ‘Their life cycles depend on domesticated cattle and swine as intermediate hosts.’ ‘Cats are the usual final host of this protozoan; but other mammals - including humans - and birds, can become intermediate hosts.’
Other articles where Intermediate host is discussed: community ecology: Alternation among hosts: …their final host and an intermediate host, or vector, that transfers the parasite from one final host to another: the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum alternates between a final human host and an intermediate mosquito host by which the parasite is transferred from one person to another. For example, influenza virus exits the respiratory tract of the source host and enters the respiratory tract of the new host. For example, sludge worms are sometimes considered "intermediate hosts" for salmonid whirling disease, even though the myxosporean parasite reproduces sexually inside them. Definitive host definition is - the host in which the sexual reproduction of a parasite takes place. Instead, scientists suspected that the bat coronavirus infected another animal, an “intermediate host,” which subsequently transmitted the virus to humans. They are internal parasites of molluscs and vertebrates.Most trematodes have a complex life cycle with at least two hosts. There are only a small number of well-documented examples of mammalian intermediate hosts allowing virus transfer onward to new hosts or acting as “mixing vessels” facilitating reassortment leading to new outbreaks.