Family Trichostrongylidae

                                 Revised 01/27/26

Classification:

Phylum Nematoda

  Class Chromadorea

    Subclass Chromadoria

Order Rhabditida

Suborder Rhabditina

Superfamily Trichostrongyloidea

               Trichostrongylidae Leiper, 1912

A huge family of animal-parasitic nematodes that has undergone several revisions into different families and of groupings into different families and subfamilies.

By the early part of the 21st Century, six subfamilies were recognized:

Trichostrongylinae Leiper, 1908

Ostertaginae Lopez-Neyra, 1947

Haemonchinae Skrjabin and Shul'ts, 1952

Cooperiinae Skrjabin and Shikhobalova, 1952

Libyostrongylinae Durette-Desset and Chabaud, 1977

Graphidiinae Travassos, 1937

In a recent classification (Beveridge et al., 2014), some of those subfamilies were elevated to family ranking within the superfamily Trichostongyloidea:

Families of the Trichostrongyloidea:  Cooperiidae, Haemonchidae and Trichostrongylidae

Within the Trichostrongylidae, three subfamilies are recognized:

• Amidostomatinae Travassos, 1919 which have well-develioped buccal capsule with dorsal tooth and 6 lips, lack a cephalic vesicle and synlophe, bursa with 4th rays short and directed anteriorly, female didelphic, tail spine absent. - parasites of aquatic birds.

• Filarinematinae Durette-Desset, Hugot, Darlu & Chabaud, 1999 which have buccal capsule reduced, lack a cephalic vesicle, lack a synlophe,  distal extremities or rays 2 and 3 of the male bursa widely separated, dosal lobe well-developed, female didelphic, spine absent on tail. - parasites of marsupials.

• Trichostrongylinae Leiper, 1908, which have buccal capsule reduced to an annulus, lack a cephalic vesicle, synlophe absent or without a consistent orientation,, distal extremities or rays 2 and 3 of the male bursa widely separated, dosal lobe poorly-developed, female didelphic, spine absent on tail - intestinal parsites of ruminants and birds.

The synlophe, a system of longitudinal cuticular ridges, is characteristic of some trichostrongyloid nematodes and is used to aid identification.

    Go To Dictionary of Terminology 

References

Beveridge, I., Spratt, D.M.  and Durette-Desset, M-C. 2014. Order Strongylida (Railliet and Henry, 1913). In Schmidt-Raesa, A. (ed). Handbook of Zoology: Gastroctricha, Cycloneurelia and Gnathifera. Vol 2. Nematoda. De Gruyter, Berlin

Durette-Desset, M-C., Hugot, J.P., Darlu, P. and Chabaud, A.G. 1999. A cladistic analysis of the Trichostrongyloidea. Int. Jour. Parasitol. 21:579-587.

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