Revised 06/07/26
Phylum Nematoda
Wide distribution, in the western Pacific, but species have also been imported by trade to aters around Europe and North America (Aragort et al., 2002)..
Cuticle very finely spinose or aspinose, sometimes with marked, irregularly scattered excrescences of fibrous structure on anterior and posterior ends o£ body.
Head with four cephalic papapillae and two lateral amphids.
Buccal capsule with a row of small circumoral teet,h,
Esophagus short and wide with anterior muscular and posterior muscular-glandular sections. Vslvular apparatus well developed.
Rectal glands large.
Male: Spicules absent, Testis beginntng near tail end; seminal vesicle well developed. Ductus ejacuIa.torius opening outside on prominent caudal process. Six pairs of sessile caudal papillae present.
Female: Vulva opening on tip of prominent cone in posterior part of body. Uterus opposed. Ovoviviparous.
Parasites of swimbladder of eels.
Type species of the family: Anguillicolida globiceps Yamaguti, 1935
Copepods are intermediate hosts to nematodes of the families Camallanidae, Cucullanidae, Philometridae, and Anguillicolidae. Life cycle studies of Procamallanus laevionchus and Paracamallanus cyathopharynx revealed development of the first three larval stages in the copepod Mesocyclops leuckarti. Eggs and first stage juveniles contaminate feces of definitive fish hosts. The eggs and feces are ingested by the copepods. Larvae in copepods, or other invertebrate intermediat hosts, develop to the fourth stage and then into adult males and females when ingested by a suitable definitive host. Larvae ingested by non-host fish often survive as fourth stage larvae in the gut or other tissues for a variable length of time and continue development into the adult stage if their paratenic host carrier host is consumed by a compatible definive host (Ogbeibu et al., 2014; Petter et al., 1989).
Aragort, W., Alvarez, F., Iglesias, R., Leiro, J.,\ and Sanmartin, M.L. 2002. Histodytes microocellatus gen. et sp. nov. (Dracunculoidea: Guyanemidae), a parasite of Raja microocellata on the European Atlantic coast (north-western Spain). Parasitol. Res. 88:932-940.
Moravec, F. and Taraschewski, H. 1988. Revision of the genus Anguillicola Yamaguti, 1935 (Nematoda: Anguillicolidae) of the swimbladder of eels, including descriptions of two new species, A. novaezelandia sp. n. and A. papernai sp. n. Folia Parasitologica 35:125-146.
Okbeibu, A.J., Okaka, C.E., Oribhabor, B.J. 2014. Gastrointestinal Helminth Parasites Community of Fish Species in a Niger Delta Tidal Creek, Nigeria. Journal of Ecosystems 2014: ID 246283, http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/246283
Petter, A.J., Fontaine, Y.A., N. Le Belle, N. 1989. Edute du development larvaire de Anguinicola crassus (Darcunloidea, Nematoda) chez un cyclopi de la region parisienne. Annales de Parasitologie Humaine et Comparee, 64:344-355.
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