[An experimental study of the susceptibility of the snakehead Ophiocephalus argus to infestation by larvae of the tapeworm Diphyllobothrium latum].

Experiments were made to infect young Ophiocephalus argus, the fish of prey delivered from eastern Asia in the Amu-Dar'ya River basin, outside the area of the broad tapeworm Diphyllobothrium latum. The dalags were infected mainly by ingesting the local copepods Arctodiaptomus salinus, the experimentally invaded larvae of the broad tapeworm. The latter larvae were obtained from the development of eggs of the helminth isolated from strobilae from the patients treated in Perm Province. D. latum plerocercoids lived in the dalags nearly 3 weeks, then they died and lysed. Thus, the dalag cannot be a supplementary host of D. latum.