Armed tapeworm (Taenia solium)

An armed tapeworm has its head equipped with 4 suckers and a double crown of hooks with the length of 4-6m. Hypermature segments are excreted with faeces, a man can be infected by eating raw or undercooked pork meat. People can also be infected orally. Developing eggs might embed in tissues. The hypodermic tissue cysticerscosis shows no symptoms while the brain and the eye-balls suffer from serious consequences. The armed tapeworm defers from a beef tapeworm by its skolex, which is armed with a double crown of hooks, strobila is shorter (2-4m, 800-900 segments), uterus segments are separated in groups and passively excreted with faeces. Eggs excreted with faeces might infect man, although the natural indirect hosts are pigs. It takes approximately two months for an armed tapeworm to grow up and it lives in the small bowel sometimes even longer than ten years.