Its hosts are marine and brackish water fish of the Mediterranean basin.

T. exiguus' tegument is covered with spines in anterior and posterior parts.

Its cerebral ganglion located in central part of the proboscis sac, sometime moved to anterior region.

Its proboscis is cylindrical or club-shaped, armed with 12 longitudinal rows of hooks of same type; the smaller hooks are in the posterior region of proboscis, larger is in its central part.

In the Black Sea the intermediate hosts of this acanthocephalan is the amphipod Apherusa bispinosa,[4] in the coelom of which the cystacanthes are located.