Toxocara cati Intestinal Roundworm of Cats		Contents		Rev 10/25/2025
		Classification		Biology and Ecology
		Morphology and Anatomy		Life Cycle
Return to Toxocara menu				Ecosystem Functions and Services
		Distribution		Management
Return to Ascarididae Menu		Feeding		References
		Go to Nemaplex Main Menu		Go to Dictionary of Terminology

Classification:

Class:    Chromadorea

Subclass: Chromadoria

Order:   Rhabditida 

Suborder: Spirurina

Superfamily: Ascaridoidea

Family:  Ascarididae

 

        Toxocara cati (Schrank, 1878) Brumpt, 1927

Morphology and Anatomy:

• Adults are brownic-yellow to cream or pink colored and stout bodied with an anterior ventrall curve
• arrowhead-shaped cervical ala with posterior margins near right-angled to body

Males:

• Length 3-7 cm, width 1-1.1 mm
• Spicules slightly unequal, curved, winged 1.6-2.1 mm long

Females:

• Length 4-12 cm
• Dark brownish, eliptical with a thick,slightly-pitted cuticle. Eggs are 65 x 75 um and contain a single cell when laid

Ref: Cruthers et al., 2020

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Distribution:

Worldwide

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Economic Importance:

May cause death in cats and larval visceral migrans in humans.

Toxocara cati is parasitic in the small intestine of cats worldwide and can cause visceral larva migrans in humans

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Hosts:

Cats

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Feeding:

Intestinal mucosa

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Life Cycle:

Complex life cycle with three modes of transmission in cats (prenatal infections through the placenta do not occur in T. cati).

1.

• Eggs passed in the feces of infected cats develop to the infective L2 in 4 weeks under optimal conditions and can survive for years in soil.
• L2 hatch are ingested by cats, penetrate the small intestine and travel to the liver and lungs by way of the bloodstream.
• The L2 molts to the L3 which returns to the small intestine via tracheal migration, soughing and swallowing, and molts to the adult stages.

2.

•  Suckling kittenss can be infected by ingestion of larvae in the milk during the first 3 weeks of lactation..

3.

•  Paratenic host (earthworms, rodents, birds, sheep, pigs, monkeys, human children, and others), in which the L2 become arrested, also serve as a transmission route for infection of cats.

 The prepatent period is 5-6 weeks by direct infection following ingestion of eggs or larvae orn a paratenic host.

Ref:  Cruthers et al., 2020

For Ecophysiological Parameters for this species, click	If species level data are not available, click for genus level parameters

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Damage:

Visceral larval migrans (sustained eosinophilia and granulomatous retinitis) in paratenic human hosts, usually children.

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Management:

Sanitation

Anthelminthics

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References:

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