Abstract
Delicate filamentous schistosomatids detected in the intestinal veins of experimentally infected chickens are here described as a new parasite species, Gigantobilharzia melanoidis, and details of its life cycle are given. It is the first complete description of a schistosome species that uses Melanoides tuberculata as an intermediate host. Apharyngeate ocellate brevifurcate cercariae found in 65 out of 950 M. tuberculata collected in a pond in Al Aweer, United Arab Emirates were used as infection material. The new species can be distinguished from the other species of the genus by the following combination of characters: caecal reunion in males situated anterior to seminal vesicle, a very short gynecophoric canal (gynecophoric canal length/body length ratio lower than 0.05) supported by 12–14 thickened bands. Cercariae of G. melanoidis can be distinguished from other Gigantobilharzia cercariae described in the literature based on the combination of these characters: flame cell formula 2[3 + 3 + (1)] = 14 and relatively longer tail stem in relation to body (tail stem length/body length ratio = 2). Under laboratory conditions at a temperature between 24 and 26 °C, M. tuberculata started to shed cercariae 7 weeks after exposure to miracidia. The prepatent period of G. melanoidis in experimentally infected chicken lasted between 43 and 49 days. The parasite inhabits the blood vessels mainly of the small intestine. Sections of adult worms and eggs were also found in histocuts of parenchymatous organs. Results of phylogenetic analysis corroborated that G. melanoidis is a distinct species; however, they also confirmed that the genus Gigantobilharzia is in need of revision and in future might be split into several genera.
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Notes
There are several descriptions of cercariae of G. sturniae. They obviously deal with multiple species, as they state two different flame cell formulas, and the isolates also differ considerably in their dimensions (for details see Aldhoun et al. 2012). However, G. melanoidis differs from all these isolates.
This species was synonymised with G. aegypti by Omran et al. (1976), but there are differences between the two species (e.g. presence of a structure that appears to be a ventral sucker in females of Gigantobilharzia sp., different size and shape of eggs, etc.); therefore, we regard these findings as two different species.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Dr. J. Kinne and his colleagues from the Department of Pathology of the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory for processing the samples and preparing the histological cuts. Our thanks go also to Thilakaratna Samarasingha from Wadi Al Safa Wildlife Centre and to Manie Grobler from Al Ajban farm for the snail collection.
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Schuster, R.K., Aldhoun, J.A. & O’Donovan, D. Gigantobilharzia melanoidis n.sp. (Trematoda: Schistosomatidae) from Melanoides tuberculata (Gastropoda: Thiaridae) in the United Arab Emirates. Parasitol Res 113, 959–972 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-013-3728-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-013-3728-1