The first record of amphibians as paratenic hosts of Serpinema larvae (Nematoda; Camallanidae)

Damselflies (Zygoptera) as paratenic hosts for Serpinema trispinosum and its report from turtle hosts from Oklahoma, USA

“…They indicated that the buccal capsule of a S. trispinosum third-stage larva is of a Paracamallanustype, which is divided into an anterior globular portion with inner ridges and a narrower and smooth posterior portion. The specimens recovered from damselfly hosts in our study agree with the morphological description of the buccal capsule reported for third-stage larvae of S. trispinosum by Moravec and Vargas-Vázques (1998a,b) and others (Bartlett andAnderson 1985, González andHamann 2007;see Figs. 1, 3-5 in the present study).…”

“…Additionally, field studies by Moravec and VargasVázques (1998b) and others (Bartlett and Anderson 1985, Cabrera-Guzmán et al 2007, González and Hamann 2007 recovered nematode third-stage larvae that conformed to the description of S. trispinosum from a variety of naturally infected paratenic hosts. These paratenic hosts included the Mayan cichlid, Cichlasoma urophthalmus (Günther), from Mexico, five species of anurans including Lysapsus limellum Cope, Lithobates catesbeianus (Shaw), L. clamitans (Latreille), L. forreri (Boulenger) and L. pipiens (Schreber) from various locations in North, Central and South America, and the great pond snail, Lymnaea stagnalis (Linnaeus), from Canada.…”

“…In contrast, morphological characteristics of third-stage larvae of S. trispinosum from aquatic snails and anurans overlapped in fewer morphological characteristics (1/12 and 6/12, respectively) with larvae recovered from damselflies (Bartlett andAnderson 1985, González andHamann 2007). Finally, the third-stage larva of S. trispinosum recovered from a turtle definitive host by Moravec and Vargas-Vázquez (1998a) was much larger than those collected from damselfly paratenic hosts (Table 2).…”

“…While S. trispinosum larvae have been reported from various groups of invertebrates and vertebrate paratenic hosts, until now no reports are known from zygopteran hosts (Bartlett and Anderson 1985, Moravec and VargasVázquez 1998b, González and Hamann 2007. This observation is an important one because both laboratory and field surveys indicate that copepods, the intermediate hosts for S. trispinosum, are an important component in the diet of larval zygopterans (Corbet 1999) and more so than in the diets of aquatic snails, amphibians or some fish (Baker 1928, Becker 1983, Dillon 2000, Bolek et al 2010.…”

Anurans as Intermediate and Paratenic Hosts of Helminth Infections in the Rainforest and Derived Savanna Biotopes of Southern Nigeria

“…Apart from this established role, anurans also serve as intermediate hosts [1][2][3][4][5][6] or as paratenic hosts [3,[7][8][9][10][11][12], in the trophical transmission of helminth infections to a number of vertebrate hosts. Reports of these alternative roles have received the attention of various investigators in Europe [2,5,10,13,14], Canada [6], USA [1,8], and South America [4,11,12]. Except for the report of Jackson and Tinsley [9], discussing the use of hymenochirine anurans as transport hosts in camallanid nematode life cycles and the anecdotal reference of Aisien et al [15,16] to the same role in the amphibians of the savanna in Nigeria, there is a dearth of information on these phenomena in Africa.…”