Travel Giant tapeworm on display at Tokyo parasite museum

"In the 1980s, a man in his 40s discovered a white thread-like object in his feces," Kuramochi said. "Dr. Satoru Kamegai, our museum's first director, had the man take an agent that gets rid of parasites." And, the story goes, the giant Dibothriocephalus nihonkaiensis tapeworm was expelled from the patient's anus. "It measured a staggering 8.8 meters, as shown here," Kuramochi said. It is likely that the tapeworm was acquired orally. Suspicion fell on cherry-salmon sashimi that the man had consumed three months earlier. The food would have contained a tiny larval form of the tapeworm, which matured and grew 10 centimeters per day in the victim's intestine. "Patients are unaware of the parasite until its fragments are eliminated from their bodies because it generally causes no symptoms," Kuramochi said.

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