Host response of flour beetles tribolium confusum to reinfection with larval stage of hymenolepis nana

Abstract EN

Adult beetles, Tribolium confusum, were exposed to gravid proglottides of worms, Hymenolepis nana obtained from an already infected mice.

Fourteen days after initial infection the beetles were infected as before.

Four days later they were dissected before the cysticercoids of the second infection were fully developed.

The results revealed that the beetles can be infected more than once, and cysticercoids can live through the life of the beetles, there is no effective host resistance associated with a number of infections, nor is there effective interference with cysticercoids development.