A family of nematode parasites of marine and freshwater eels.

• 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

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References

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.

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