Aporcelaimus americanus

Aporcelaimus americanus	Contents	Rev 09/14/2020
	Classification	Biology and Ecology
	Morphology and Anatomy	Life Cycle
Return to Aporcelaimus Menu		Ecosystem Functions and Services
	Distribution	Management
Return to Aporcelaimidae Menu	Feeding	References
	Go to Nemaplex Main Menu	Go to Dictionary of Terminology

Classification:

Enoplea

Dorylaimia
Dorylaimida

Aporcelaimidae

Aporcelaimus americanus Thorne & Swanger, 1936

Morphology and Anatomy:

Very large nematodes, 5-8 mm long.
Cuticle thick, 7-9 um.
Head offset by deep constriction,
Esophagus muscular, 1010-1320 um long, expanding before 50 % of its length,
Odontostyle 28-29 um, about 2.3-2.9% of esophagus length.

Ref. Andrassy (2000, 2009).


Aporcelaimus americanus: Head	Aporcelaimus americanus: Vulva and female tail	Aporcelaimus americanus: Mail tail and spicules
Drawings from Andrassy, 2000

Males:

Diorchic.
Spicules large, 200-210 um, curved.
15-16 small ventromedian supplements.
Tail similar to female.

Female:

Didelphic, amphidelphic.
Vulva transverse with sclerotized inner lips.
Female tail 0.8-0.9 anal body diameters.

Reported median body size for this species (Length mm; width micrometers; weight micrograms) - Click:

Distribution:

Reported from the United States and Europe, but rather uncommon.

Feeding:

Categorized as predators and omnivores (Yeates et al., 1993). Nematodes of the genus are reported feeding on other ematodes and on oligochaets.

Life Cycle:

Ecophysiological Parameters:

For Ecophysiological Parameters for this species, click	If species level data are not available, click for genus level parameters

Ecosystem Functions and Services:

Regulation of opportunistic species by predation.

References:

Andrassy, I. 2000. Four large-sized species of the family Aporcelaimidae (Nematoda, Dorylaimida) with proposal of a new genus, Epacrolaimus gen. n. Opuscula Zoologica Budapest 32:3-26.

Andrassy, I. 2009. Free-living Nematodes of Hungary III. Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest. 608p.

Thorne, G. 1930. Predacious nemas of the genus Nygolaimus and a new genus, Aporcelaimus. Journal of Agricultural Reaearch 41:445-466.

Thorne, G. and Swanger, H.H. 1936. A monograph of the nematode genera Dorylaimus Dujardin, Aporcelaimus n.g., Dorylaimoides n.g. and Pungentus n.g. Capita Zool. 6:1-223.

Yeates, G.W., T. Bongers, R. G. M. De Goede, D. W. Freckman, and S. S. Georgieva. 1993. Feeding habits in soil nematode families and genera—An outline for soil ecologists. Journal of Nematology 25:315-331

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