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Free-living flatworms are mostly predators, and live in water or in shaded, humid terrestrial environments, such as leaf litter. Cestodes (tapeworms) and trematodes (flukes) have complex life-cycles, with mature stages that live as parasites in the digestive systems of fish or land vertebrates , and intermediate stages that infest secondary hosts.
Triclads reproduce sexually and asexually, and different species may be able to reproduce by one or both modes. [5] Planarians are hermaphrodites. In sexual reproduction, the mating generally involves mutual insemination. Thus, one of their gametes will combine with the gamete of another planarian.
Pseudobiceros bedfordi (common names Persian carpet flatworm [1] and Bedford's flatworm) is a species of flatworm in the family Pseudocerotidae. [2]This species has two penises, which it uses to engage in penis fencing, attempting to inject sperm into its opponent in order to fertilize it, while simultaneously avoiding being fertilized by their opponent.
Penis fencing is a mating behavior engaged in by many species of flatworm, such as Pseudobiceros hancockanus. Species which engage in the practice are hermaphroditic; each individual has both egg-producing ovaries and sperm-producing testes. [1] The flatworms "fence" using extendable two-headed dagger-like stylets.
The divided flatworm can reproduce both asexually, by dividing itself, and sexually. The species is a hermaphrodite, meaning that they have both male and female reproductive organs. When two flatworms reproduce they battle to decide who gets to fertilize and who is fertilized. The winner gets to act as the male, fertilizing the other. [1]
Pseudoceros are simultaneous hermaphrodites [9] and reproduce sexually via random hypodermic insemination through the body tissue. [10] These organisms participate in penis fencing, [9] which is a behavior where the flatworms use their extended penises to stab and inseminate the other, while avoiding becoming inseminated themselves.
Trematoda is a class of flatworms known as flukes or trematodes. They are obligate internal parasites with a complex life cycle requiring at least two hosts. The intermediate host, in which asexual reproduction occurs, is usually a snail. The definitive host, where the flukes sexually reproduce, is a vertebrate. Infection by trematodes can ...
Like other members of the genus Pseudobiceros, P. hancockanus is hermaphroditic with each individual able to function as either a male or female. Mating between two such worms involves penis fencing, as each worm tries to inject sperm into the other with one of its two stubby penises, while trying to avoid being inseminated itself.