The life-cycle of Echinoparyphium hydromyos sp.nov. (Digenea: Echinostomatidae) from the Australian water-rat

Echinoparyphium hydromyos sp.nov. with forty-five collar spines is described from the Australian water rat, Hydromys chrysogaster Geoffr.

The cercaria occurs naturally in Plananisus isingi (Cotton & Godfrey), and all stages in the life-history have been demonstrated experimentally.

Encystation occurs in the kidneys of tadpoles.

The adult is most closely related to Echinoparyphium recurvatum (Linstow). It differs from this in its greater number of eggs and in its life-history. E. recurvatum occurs predominantly in birds, and is rarely found naturally in mammals. E. hydromyos has been found only in a mammal.

Cercaria echinoparyphii hydromyos is compared with C. clelandae Johnston and Angel; it differs from the latter in the ‘compound’ nature of the excretory granules. The adult of C. clelandae has not been demonstrated in spite of a number of experiments to determine it.

Type material has been deposited in the South Australian Museum.

I wish to acknowledge the help given by my colleague, Patricia M. Thomas, in field work and in other ways, and by Mr Ian Smith, of this department, in the experimental work on life-history studies.

A list of the parasitic Protozoa, Helminths and Arthropoda recorded from species of the Family Anatidae (Ducks, Geese and Swans)

The following list, compiled during my tenure of a grant given by the Nuffield Foundation to the Wildfowl Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, records species of Protozoa, helminths and Arthropoda found in anatid birds, either by the authors of the papers listed in the References, or by others to whose work these authors refer. It will be seen that there are, after the names of all the parasites, numbers which indicate, by reference to the corresponding numbers in the References, the authors and publications in which the species concerned are recorded. ThusCotylurus brevis(142, 145*) means that this trematode was recorded fromAix galericulata, the Mandarin Duck, by Dubois (1953) and that Dubois & Rausch (1950a) reported an experimental infection of this duck with it.