Onchocotyle somniosi n.sp., an Ectoparasitic Trematode of the Sleeper Shark (Somniosus microcephalus)

Abstract

The specimens herein described were obtained from the gills of Somniosus microcephalus Block, at Excursion Inlet, Alaska, in 1909. This shark is also the host of Onchocotyle borealis, the species most closely resembling the new species, and is known in European waters as the Greenland Shark. To quote Goode: “This species, also called by our fishermen the ‘Gurry’ or ‘Ground’ Shark, is a native of the Arctic Seas, but on our coast ranges south to Cape Cod, and in the Eastern Atlantic at least to England, while in the Pacific it has been observed from Puget Sound northward.”

Studies on the Helminth Fauna of Japan -Part 53. Trematodes of Fishes, Xii-

“…of LAYMAN (1931) from the same host species of the Sea of Japan, very closely resembles Squaloncocotyle somniosi (CAUSEY, 1926) from the Pacific coast of America, but in the latter species the egg has a single short filament. In S. sphyrnae MAcCALLUM, 1931, the hook of the haptoral sclerite is comparatively long.…”