The fascinating world of flukes

This inaugural lecture is aimed at showing the interesting and fascinating aspects of studies on gill flukes and blood flukes. Flukes are the common term for parasitic worm belonging to the Phylum Platyhelminthes and class Trematoda. The author begins by giving a brief classification on flukes and quoting the lyrics of a song on Polythelminthes. The morphological feature of the gill fluke is then introduced with pictures of the skin fluke Gyrodactylus sp. The host specificity of Monogenea is highlighted with emphasis on a variety of mechanisms or parameters which can influence host-specificity. The site specificity of Monogenea is also discussed with special emphasis on the site-specificity exhibited by the monogenea Cichlidogyrus sclerosus on the gills of tilapia Sarotherodon mossambicus