Ommatokoita superba n.g. et sp., a Parasitic Copepod of Somniosus microcephalus

• Published in: Parasitology
• Main Author: Leigh-Sharpe, W. Harold
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1926
• Subjects: Infectious Diseases; Animal Science and Zoology; Parasitology; Arctic; Greenland; Somniosus microcephalus
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0031182000005187; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0031182000005187

The animal under consideration, or one very like it, has been observed by most collectors of parasitic Copepoda since the publication by Grant appeared in 1827. All authors subsequent to Grant have placed it in the genus Lernaeopoda . Whilst there is a singular unanimity that the area of fixation is the eye, there is a considerable divergence with regard to the host: thus, while Grant originally found it upon the Greenland shark, Scott (1912) records the principal host as Lamna cornubica (which he also calls the Greenland shark), and quotes Norman as having obtained a specimen from Mustelus vulgaris at Polperro. Wilson (1915), an accurate observer, has no record of the host for most of the specimens he examined but stated that one came from a shark. It does not however follow that all these animals are of the same species . The following description is based on two specimens taken from the Arctic shark Squalus borealis = Somniosus microcephalus (Syn. Laemargus and Scymnus ) off Greenland on 11. viii. 1923, by W. S. Bristowe.