Flat Animals - Detailed Nature Illustration - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Engraving reproduction of: Flat Animals

Original title Platodes - Plattentiere

Diplozoon Poster - Platyhelminthes (Platynelminthes) of the classes Trematodes (Trematoda) and Cestodes (Cestoda)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Kingdom of Flat Animals (Platoda) or Flatworms (Platyhelminthes)
Classes of Trematodes (Trematoda) and Cestodes (Cestoda)

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Platodes - Flat Animals :

The kingdom Platoda (Platodes) is usually still included in the varied group of "Worms," but is distinguished from the true worms (Vermalia, Plates 23, 32, and 33) by the absence of a body cavity and anus; the intestine has only a single opening, as in the Cnidaria. This kingdom comprises three species-rich classes: the Turbellaria (Turbellaria) and the two parasitic classes of Trematoda (Trematoda) and Cestoda (Cestoda). In all, the flattened, leaf-shaped body is of very simple organization, without limbs. The soft skin is covered in the oldest group, the aquatic Turbellaria, with a layer of cilia; in the two parasitic classes, this feature has been lost; in adapting to parasitic life, these classes have acquired attachment organs, suckers, and hooks. Cestodes, which live in the intestinal canal of other animals, have lost their own intestinal canal (inherited from their Trematode ancestors). The development of these parasitic Platodes is very remarkable, often linked to migrations through two different hosts, often also associated with an alternation of generations. Trematodes (Fig. 1—9) show in the order Polystomes (Fig. 1—9) mainly a direct development (Hypogenesis), while in the order Distomes (Fig. 1—3) there is often an alternation of generations (Metagenesis); the free-swimming larvae of the latter move by means of a fin (the "cercariae", Cercariae). Cestodes (Fig. 10—14) are rarely simple monozooids (Fig. 10); most form chains composed of many segments ("chain worms" or Polyzooids, Fig. 11—14); each segment (Proglottid) corresponds to a monozooid.

Species present on the naturalist board of Flat Animals - Diplozoon :

• Cercaria dichotoma
• Cercaria spinifera
• Cercaria bucephalus
• Polystomum integerrimum
• Gyrodactylus elegans
• Diplozoon paradoxum
• Tristomum coccineum
• Callicotyle kroyeri
• Caryophallaeus mutabilis
• Tetrarhynchus longicollis
• Phyllobothryon gracile
• Taenia solium