Parasitology, Harold W. Manter Laboratory of
Date of this Version
7-1-2002
Abstract
During field surveys in Venezuela, Peru, and French Guiana, species of Litomosoides were recovered from bats and from a didelphid marsupial. Their morphology was studied, giving particular attention to the head and caudal papillae, the spicules (used to distinguish the carinii and sigmodontis groups of Litomosoides), and the microfilariae. Litomosoides wilsoni sp. n. from the short-tailed opossum Monodelphis emiliae is described from Peru; Litomosoides brasiliensis, Litomosoides chandleri, and Litomosoides guiterasi from bats are redescribed, and new hosts are recorded. For the first time, larval stages were recovered from bats (one male and one female fourth-stage larvae of Litomos. brasiliensis). Litomosoides solarii sp. n. from the fringe-lipped bat Trachops cirrhosus (Phyllostomidae) in Peru is distinguished from the other species by its peculiar microfilaria (the male is unknown). Filaria serpicula from Phyllostomus sp. in Brazil is renamed Litomosoides serpicula (Molin, 1858) comb. n. This study confirms the close morphological resemblance between the species of Litomosoides from flying and terrestrial mammals and reinforces the hypothesis of host-switching in the evolution of this genus. The two North American species of Litomosoides from the Geomyidae were reexamined and are peculiar in several adult and microfilarial characters that resemble those of Litomosa, parasitic in Old World bats. The following new combinations are proposed: Litomosa westi (Gardner and Schmidt, 1986) comb. n. and Litomosa thomomydis (Gardner and Schmidt, 1986) comb. n. However, Litomosa and Litomosoides have in common a thick buccal capsule embedded posteriorly in the esophagus, which suggests that they are closely related. Litomosoides andersoni, a parasite of a caviomorph rodent, likely results from conflation of a species of Litomosoides and one of Ackertia.
Comments
Published in Comparative Parasitology, vol. 69, no. 2 (2002): 177-195. Copyright 2002 by the Helminthological Society of Washington. Used by permission.