Re: Photos! Flukes or Tapeworms?

Nope. Most Are rotifers...after re-viewing your pics, you can assume anything with tentacles or a long stringy wormy leg-looking appendage with a forked (V shaped) tail at the end, or anything resembling a penis (sorry), or a squid, or an open-mouthed fish is a rotifer/acanthocephalan or bdelloides. (I see the proboscis of at least one acanthocephalan...looks like a bristly worm at one end. They always have a pincer-like appendage they use for attaching to the host, called a "toe". They can look segmented as well. (I particularly like the one that resembles an onion, although at one end, the cilia are visible: a dead give away that a rotifer is involved, if you didn't believe the red eye. lol
Acathocephalans and possibly other species can secrete a cement to make attachment more permanent....which makes removal painful, (possibly accounting for skin lesions that won't heal). By badgering a lesion, you are threatening resident rotifers which makes them Increase their reproduction rates, and then you'll have eggs all over and more rotifers inside of the lesion as well, since a single parent will just break apart as you try to pull it out, becoming many individuals where there was only one before... so only use effective removal techniques like baking soda or salt. Keep skin dry to prevent the biting crawling feelings, which are likely rotifers reviving because of the rain and attaching themselves to you.
Always vacuum house after rainfall as rotifers will be rehydrating on the floor waiting to be picked up by a bare foot. Sorry to be so longwinded. Tweet