[10][11] While infections with D. dendriticum are usually symptom free, some animals may show anemia, edema, emaciation, and liver cirrhosis.

The diagnosis of D. dendriticum flukes is mainly from the recovery of adults in liver during necropsy or detecting eggs in animal feces.

[11] There is some evidence connecting decreased liver function from the trematode infection with pregnancy toxaemia and mastitis in ewes when combined with other risk factors.

This includes the avoidance of animal grazing early in the day or late in the evening, when ants are more likely to climb to the top of the grass blade.

[citation needed] Dicrocoelium dendriticum has a similar morphology to Clonorchis sinensis, the Chinese liver fluke.

The first intermediate host, the terrestrial snail (Cochlicopa lubrica in the United States), consumes the feces, and becomes infected by the larval parasites.

The larvae (or miracidium) drill through the wall of the gut and settle in its digestive tract, where they develop into a juvenile stage.

The second intermediate host, an ant (Formica fusca in the United States[13]), uses the trail of snail slime as a source of moisture.

Most of the cercariae encyst in the haemocoel of the ant and mature into metacercariae, but one moves to the sub-esophageal ganglion (a cluster of nerve cells underneath the esophagus).

[14] As evening approaches and the air cools, the infected ant is drawn away from other members of the colony and upward to the top of a blade of grass.

[18] Traditionally, diagnosis for dicrocoeliasis infection involves the identification of Dicrocoelium dendriticum eggs in the faeces of a human or other animal.

Recently, an ELISA using a Dicrocoelium dendriticum antigen was able to identify cases of dicrocoeliasis in sheep in Italy 28 days earlier than traditional methods.

Dicrocoelium dendriticum is found throughout Europe (former U.S.S.R., Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Turkey), the Middle East (Iran), Asia (China, Japan, Vietnam), Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone) and in North and South America and Australia.

Current public health prevention strategies have involved the condemnation of contaminated livers so as to eliminate any possibility for food-borne infection.