Ancylid snails: first intermediate host to certain trematodes with notes on ancylids as a new host for Megalodiscus and Haematoloechus

TitleAncylid snails: first intermediate host to certain trematodes with notes on ancylids as a new host for Megalodiscus and Haematoloechus
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication1959
AuthorsR. Smith J
JournalTransactions of the American Microscopical Society
Volume78
Pagination228-231
KeywordsTREMATODES
Abstract

Collections of ancylid snails were made in eastern Virginia and south Florida and were found to be infected with furcocercous and xiphidiocercariae which appeared similar to those found in ancylids from the Ann Arbor, Michigan region. Similar findings were made in the area of the University of Michigan Biological Station at Douglas Lake where over 2000 specimens of Ferrissia parallela yielded nine different species of cercariae. These were a xiphidiocercaria, three species, each two percent; a brevifurcate strigeatoid, one percent; a brevifurcate apharyngeate spirorchiid, one percent; echinostome cercariae, two species, each two percent; a non-pigmented amphistome cercaria, less then one percent and a heavily pigmented amphistome cercaria, over 20 percent. No effort was made to give detailed descriptions of the cercariae other then to place them into their general groupings. It can be noted, however, that one species of xiphidiocercaria found emerging from the anyclids in the Douglas Lake region appeared identical to the cercaria of Haematoloechus which was found emerging from the snail Planorbula armigeura (Say) in a nearby roadside ditch. This indicates that Ferrissia parallela probably serves as a suitable first intermediate host for this species of trematode. The nonpigmented amphistome cercariae found in the Douglas Lake region appeared identical to the cercariae of Megalodiscus temperatus which were found in ancylids collected in the Ann Arbor region. The heavily pigmented amphistome cercariae were found abundantly in two localities of the Douglas Lake vicinity. Each limpet infected with these latter amphistomes contained five or six mature rediae which lacked locomotor appendages. Encystment took place readily on the sides of the container. These cercariae appeared different in structure and size from those described thus far for other amphistomes and are probably new species. Further work would be necessary in order to confirm this statement.