n :  a genus (the type of the family Hymenolepididae) of small taenioid tapeworms including numerous comparatively innocuous parasites of birds and mammals that usu. require insect intermediate hosts but are able in some cases (as in H. nana of humans) to complete the life cycle in a single host by means of an oncosphere which hatches in the intestine, invades a villus, and there develops into a cysticercoid which ultimately escapes and develops into an adult tapeworm in the lumen of the intestine .
 
 
 
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