The parasite was found in the bile ducts of three sperm whales, which were caught in the 1957–58 whaling season.

As specimens were found independently in bile ducts of three whales this position in the host appears to be the natural habitat. All the worms were in pieces and incomplete. The pieces, in each case, totalled approximately 18 metres, 0·9 metres and 21 metres respectively. The holotype (length 18 metres) was probably complete except for a few terminal proglottids because it consisted of two very long pieces and one short piece which could be fitted together. The type material has been deposited in the British Museum (Natural History) Registered No. 1961·12·12·1 (Holotype) and 1961·12·12·1 (Para types).

In two previous papers (Dissanaike et al., 1957a and 1957b) we described the technique of tagging Culex fatigans and Armigeres subalbatus (=obturbans) with P32 to obtain high beta activities. Filarial larvae were made to develop to the infective stage in these activated mosquitoes and were found to have beta activities high enough for detection individually.

Taylor (1928), in an attempt to infect starlings with the gapeworm, was able to infect six starlings out of fifteen which had been dosed, nine of which died before any observations could be made. The value of this experiment is, however, somewhat doubtful owing to the possibility of previous infection in the starlings experimented with, and the author concludes that in one bird, such was the case, owing to the size of the worms found.

A satisfactory antigen for use in serological studies of nematodiasis in sheep has been prepared from Bunostomum trigonocephalum.

The investigations are outlined and a method for its routine preparation from field material is described.

Bildungsanomalien verschiedener Art kommen bei Cestoden relativ häung vor. Wiederholt wurden dreikantige Taenien mit Y-förmigem Querschnitt und einem Scolex mit 6 Saugnäpfen beschrieben, Zwischenschaltung unvollständiger keilförmiger Glieder, gefensterte Proglottiden, gegabelte Gliederketten und Umkehrung oder Verdopplung des Genitalapparates. Eine weitere Missbildung besteht darin, dass Glieder miteinander verschmolzen sind, so dass auf mehr oder weniger langer Strecke Gliedergrenzen zwischen den aufeinanderfolgenden Genitalsätzen fehlen. Diese Anomalie wurde von Colin (1875) als “Taenia fusa” oder “T. continua” bezeichnet. In den meisten veröffentlichten Fällen dieser Art war das Fehlen der Segmentation auf einzelne Stücke eines sonst normal gegliederten Wurmkörpers beschränkt. Hierher gehören z.B. folgende bei Taenia-Arten des Menschen beobachtete Fälle: ein Sammlungs-exemplar von 1830 des Royal College of Surgeons in London, das Blanchard (1894) beschrieb und abbildete, die Fälle von Colin (1875), Vallin (1877), Welch (zit. n. Blanchard 1889), Bork (1891) und eine Eigenbeobachtung von Blanchard (1894). Auch bei dem Hundebandwurm Taenia pisiformis sind entsprechende Miss-bildungen von Teilen der Strobila beschrieben worden (Neumann, 1896, Roudabush, 1941).

The establishment of reliable serological methods for cysticercosis in pigs is important for the surveillance, control and prevention of taeniosis/cysticercosis in humans as well as in pigs to prevent economic loss. Both ELISA and immunoblot using glycoproteins (GPs) purified by a single step of preparative iso-electric focusing, which are highly useful for human cysticercosis, have been applied for a serological study in pigs naturally infected with Taenia solium. All sera from pigs showed similar responses to those in human cysticercosis. Therefore, it is expected that both ELISA and immunoblots using GPs would be useful in differentiating infected pigs from uninfected ones.

Species co-occurrences and interspecific associations between intensity of infection were studied in helminth communities of three populations of brown trout, Salmo trutta, from northern Italy. Of the eight helminth species, only four were common enough to be included in the analyses: Pomphorhynchus laevis, Acanthocephalus anguillae, Echinorhynchus truttae and Cyathocephalus truncatus. The observed frequencies of co-occurrences of the different species, based on presence/absence data, did not differ from those predicted by a null model derived from prevalence data. However, the intensity of infection (number of individuals per fish) of different helminth species were generally, but not always significantly, negatively correlated in tests of pairwise associations. Variation in fish sizes and its effect on infection levels, and whether or not two helminth species used the same or different intermediate hosts, had no influence on these findings. Of the few significant negative associations found between pairs of helminth species, none was found in more than one fish population. This suggests that interspecific associations may be condition-dependent: even in apparently similar localities, the same combinations of helminth species show different associations. Without evidence of replicability, it is almost impossible to conclude to the consistent role of competition between any pair of helminth species in the field.

Aedes aegypti (black-eyed Liverpool strain) were exposed to a sublethal dose (LD25) of Bacillus sphaericus and were fed to Mastomys coucha infected with Brugia malayi. The development of the filarial parasite was found to be arrested mostly at the second larval stage. The infection (P< 0.05), infectivity rates (P< 0.001) and L3 load (P< 0.001) were found to be reduced significantly in the treated group.

Populations of Pasteuria penetrans isolated from root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) and cyst nematodes (Heterodera spp.) were tested for their ability to adhere to a limited selection of sheathed and exsheathed animal parasitic nematodes, free living nematodes, including Caenorhabditis elegans wild type and several srf mutants, and plant parasitic nematodes. The attachment of spores of Pasteuria was restricted and no spores were observed adhering to any of the animal parasitic nematodes either with or without their sheath or to any of the free living nematodes including C. elegans and the srf mutants. All spore attachment was restricted to plant parasitic nematodes; however, spores isolated from cyst nematodes showed the ability to adhere to other genera of plant parasitic nematodes which was not the case with spores isolated from root-knot nematodes. The results are discussed in relationship to cuticular heterogeneity.

Four strains of entomopathogenic nematodes were isolated with a live trap method in southern Poland. The isolates were identified as Steinernema silvaticum based on morphological, morphometric and molecular data. Infective juveniles of Polish S. silvaticum isolates differ in body length from S. weiseri (951 vs 740 μm, respectively), and in the hyaline tail portion from S. kraussei (48 vs 38%, respectively). First-generation males of S. silvaticum are longer than those of S. kraussei, S. weiseri and S. ichnusae (1829 vs 1400, 1180 and 1341 μm, respectively). Males of S. silvaticum and a sister species S. kraussei can be distinguished by the distance from the anterior end to the nerve ring (142 vs 105 μm), spicule (66 vs 49 μm) and gubernaculum length (45 vs 33 μm), and the presence of a mucron. The analysis of internal transcribed spacer (ITS), D2-D3 and cox1 sequences of the tested nematodes revealed differences of 3–5%, 3% and 12–13%, respectively, from S. kraussei strains. The phylogeny of both nuclear and mitochondrial genes indicated close relationships of the Polish S. silvaticum isolates with S. kraussei, S. oregonense and S. cholashanense. The reproductive isolation of the studied isolates was confirmed by hybridization tests with other European feltiae–kraussei group representatives. This study has supplemented the original description of S. silvaticum with morphological and morphometric characterization of the first-generation males and females. This is also the first molecular study of this species based on a multi-gene approach.