the life cycles of opalines in fish, reptile or arthropod hosts.

Asexual phase in adult anuran host. The basic opaline life cycle begins with the large, multinucleate trophonts in the adult anuran cloaca. Through much of the year, the trophonts grow and divide continually to yield more trophonts. Nuclear divisions maintain the appropriate number of nuclei during this phase. As the host's breeding season approaches, the trophonts enter a phase known as palintomy -- a series of cell divisions