Bucephalus mytili

Bucephalus mytili is a parasitic flatworm of the class Trematoda.[1] It is a parasite of fish and a parasitic castrator of the mussel Mytilus edulis, where it destroys the mussel's gonads and causes the mussel to grow much larger than normal.[2]

Bucephalus mytili
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Platyhelminthes
Class: Rhabditophora
Order: Plagiorchiida
Family: Bucephalidae
Genus: Bucephalus
Species:
B. mytili
Binomial name
Bucephalus mytili
Cole 1935

The cercaria of B. mytili were described in 1935 occurring in Mytilus edulis in Wales. They are the sporocysts, which are long and tangled within the mollusk host's digestive gland, and cause parasitic castration of the host.[3]

References

  1. "Bucephalus mytili Cole, 1935 AphiaID: 109154". ERMS European Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
  2. Kuris, Armand M. (1974). "Trophic interactions: similarity of parasitic castrators to parasitoids" (PDF). Quarterly Review of Biology. 49 (2): 129–148. doi:10.1086/408018.
  3. Russell, Frederick S. (1967). Advances in Marine Biology. Academic Press. pp. 209–211. ISBN 0-12-026105-7.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.