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tongue worm

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tongue worm

n.
Any of various wormlike, sometimes tongue-shaped, parasitic invertebrates of the phylum Pentastomida, having a mouth surrounded by four hooks used to attach to the respiratory passages of reptiles, birds, and carnivorous mammals. Also called pentastome, pentastomid.
The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
A blood-sucking parasite that infests the nasal cavity of carnivores; human disease is caused by Armillifer armillatus—usual host, snakes—and Linguatula serrata—usual host, sheep and goats; pentastomiasis is global in distribution; linguliasis or Halzoun’s disease is more common in the Middle East and results from eating poorly-cooked meat; the larvae cause pain, itching, sneezing due to transnasal migration, dysphagia, vomiting and lymphadenopathy; a large bolus of worms may cause fatal obstruction
Segen's Medical Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All rights reserved.

tongue worm

A non-forensic blood-sucking parasite that infests the nasal cavity of carnivores
McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in periodicals archive
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This material covers ants, bees, beetles, bed bugs, conenose bugs, wheel bugs, caterpillars, centipedes, cockroaches, earwigs, flies, lice, millipedes, mites, mosquitoes, moths, pentastomes (tongue worms), scorpions, spiders, ticks, and wasps.
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For example, whether or not the parasites pentastomes (so called, "tongue worms") should be classified with crustaceans of the arthropod phylum -- an issue on today's cutting edge of taxonomy -- has little to do, I'm quite sure, with our social order and values.
The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination
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