Nematode Parasites of Vertebrates in the Philadelphia Zoological Garden and Vicinity

Emended descriptions of the female ofAscaridia hermaphrodita(Froelich 1789) and of the male ofWellcomia evoluta(Linstow 1899) are given. The female ofA. hermaphroditais described in full as a description of it does not appear in the literature. Several corrections are made of errors found in descriptions. Especially noticeable is the illustration of the male tail ofW. evolutaby Yorke and Maplestone (1926), p. 197, (fig. 131 E) which they wrongly label “Posterior extremity of female (After Hall).” Further evidence is furnished upon the probable life-cycle of a species of the genus Eustrongylides in showing that pre-adult stages ofE. wenrichiCanavan 1929 have been found encysted in a fish, as well as in a frog and amphiuma (“Congo eel”); the adults of the worm were found in a Canadian goose. Thus confirming Jaegerskiöld in his opinion that fish are the intermediate host and fish-eating aquatic birds are the final hosts of the genus. Superparasitism is shown to be of fairly common occurrence. Numerous records of new hosts are mentioned. Three worms that previously were found and described by the writer as new were found again. In each case they were encountered in new but closely related hosts to those in which they were previously found. There are five new species and one new genus described and illustrated in this paper (II):Pharyngostrongylus brevissp. nov. from a Bernard's kangaroo,Phascolostrongylus turleyigen. et sp. nov. from a common wombat.Oesophagostomum vigintimembrumsp. nov. from an Arabian camel,Ascaris hippopotamisp. nov. from a hippopotamus andDiplotriaena bifidussp. nov. from both blue-bearded and pileated jays. Finally, there are 209 determinations of 39 genera and 69 species, including new ones, from 181 hosts involving 94 different host species.