Bancroft's Filarial Worm

Bancroft's filarial worm (Wuchereria bancrofti) is a thread-like parasite that lives in human lymphatic vessels and causes lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis, with grossly swollen limbs. It is spread by mosquitoes in tropical regions.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Bancroft's Filarial Worm in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Ecdysozoa lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Adult worms live in lymph vessels for years, causing damage that leads to swelling of legs, arms and genitals, and disfigurement and stigma. Microscopic larvae (microfilariae) circulate in the blood, often at night when mosquitoes bite.

Culex, Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes transmit the worm. See Mosquito-borne disease.

The World Health Organization runs a program of mass drug administration, giving whole communities albendazole with ivermectin or diethylcarbamazine. The worm also relies on Wolbachia bacteria, which can be targeted with doxycycline. See Wolbachia.

• Mosquito-borne disease — vector transmission
• Wolbachia — the worm's symbiont
• Dog Heartworm — a filarial worm of dogs