Digeneans from intertidal molluscs of SW Iceland

Kirill V. Galaktionov, Karl Skirnisson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The fauna of digenean daughter-sporocysts, rediae, cercariae and metacercariae infecting molluscs Littorina spp., Onoba aculeus, Nucella lapillus and Epheria vincta has been studied in the Skerjafjordur and Grindavik regions of SW Iceland. In total, intramolluscan stages of 19 digenean species were recorded; 14 of them are new for Iceland and one of them, a microphallid named Cercaria islandica I, was unknown. A description of this new microphallid cercaria is provided. In addition, the identification and separation of the intramolluscan stages of some microphallid, renicolid and echinostomatid species are discussed. Consideration is given to difficulties encountered when identifying digenean species found on the coasts of European countries. Problems have arisen largely because larval and adult stages have been described and named independently and in isolation, synonyms are common and many 'definitive' descriptions are inadequate or incomplete.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)87-101
Number of pages15
JournalSystematic Parasitology
Volume47
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2000

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: The project was financed by grants from the Iceland Republic Fund 1994–1999, the NATO Science Fellowship and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant N 98-04-49706). We wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for comments on draft of the manuscript. We also thank Dr S.W.B. Irwin for comments and correction of the English.

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