Adults live in the intestine of birds. Eggs are passed in the feces and develop if they are deposited in water. A miracidium hatches and searches for an aquatic snail to penetrate and infect. There it develops into a mother sporocyst that produces many daughter sporocysts. The daughter sporocysts produce cercariae that leave the snail and swim in search of a fish to infect. The cercaria penetrates the skin of the fish, sheds its tail, and begins migrating through the tissues. Most end up in the eyes or brain, where they become unencysted metacercariae. When the infected fish is eaten by a bird, the metacercariae grow and mature in the intestine.