About: Pachysentis

Pachysentis is a genus of Acanthocephala (thorny-headed worms, also known as spiny-headed worms) that parasitize carnivourous mammals by attaching themselves to the intestines using their hook-covered proboscis. Their life cycle includes an egg stage found in host feces, a cystacanth (larval) stage in an intermediate host such as the Egyptian cobra, and an adult stage where cystacanths mature in the intestines of the host. This genus appears identical to the closely related Oncicola apart from a greater number of hooks on the proboscis. The eleven species (however, P. septemserialis has an uncertain taxonomic status) in this genus are distributed across Africa and the Americas.