NEIHPID

Lytocestus filiformis (Furhmann and Baer Furhmann and Baer) Woodland 1923 Back

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Taxonomy

Platyhelminthes »
       CESTODA »
              Caryophyllidea »
                     Lytocestidae Wardle et McLeod, 1952 »
                            Lytocestinae Satpute et Agarwal, 1980 »
                                   Lytocestus Cohn, 1908 »
                                           Lytocestus filiformis (Woodland 1923), Furhmann and Baer 1925

Host

Clarias (batrachus)(L.)

Habitat

Intestine

Locality

Guwahati (Assam)

Description

Body flat, elongated, ribbon like, posterior end broader than the anterior end, 5.94- 33.00 mm in length, 0.59-1.65 mm in maximum breadth at level of cirrus sac; longitudinal muscle fibers disposed in two distinct zones of cortex and medulla. Scolex smooth, undifferentiated, variable in shape, may be flat or pointed in some. Neck long, slender. Testes numerous, 232-532 in number, occupying the medullary region of the body, spherical or oval in shape extending from behind the neck up to the cirrus sac posteriorly; cirrus lined by a thin muscular wall, opening separately from the utero-vaginal pore. Ovary bilobed, follicular, cortical, the two lobes joined to each other by an ovarian isthmus; Mehlis' gland well developed, behind ovarian isthmus; uterine coils glandular, extending from behind the isthmus beyond the anterior horns of ovary up to the cirrus sac; vagina distinct, joins the uterus distally to open at the utero-vaginal pore. Vitellaria cortical, smaller than testes, spherical or oval in shape, form a crescent around the testes, no post-ovarian vitelline follicles present. Excretory pore terminal. Eggs 0.03-0.05 x 0.01-0.03 mm in size, smooth, operculate, oval in shape, .Â

Remarks

L. filiformis was first described by Woodland (1923) as Caryophyllaeus filiformis from a mormyrid fish host, Mormyrus coschive, of river Nile at Khartoum. Later, Fuhrmann and Baer (1925) , on the basis of cortical disposition of vitellaria and medullary disposition of testes, shifted it to the genus Lytocestus.

C. batrachus represents a new host for L. filiformis. Further, its occurrence from the north-eastern region of India constitutes a new locality report zoo-geographically, i.e., from the Oriental region, in addition to the Palearctic realm, from where the species was originally described.

Helminthological collections record

NEHU/Z - CF/6

References

Woodland, W. N. F. (1923). On some remarkable new forms of Caryophyllaeidae from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and a revision of the families of the Cestodaria. Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, (New Series). 67:pp  435-472.

Fuhrmann, O. and Baer, J. G.(1925) Zoological results of the third Tanganyika expedition conducted by Dr. W. A. Cunnington, 1904-1905. Report on the Cestodes. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London.pp 79-100.