| Summary: | Detailed parasitological investigations were carried out on the stomach and the intestine of a young male Balaenoptera physalus found stranded along the east coast of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea. Thousands of digeneanswere found in both the caecum and the colon. Morphological and morphometric studies were carried out on theseparasites, which were identified as Ogmogaster antarcticus Johnston, 1931. In contrast to the other species of the genus, O. antarcticus has a large geographical distribution and it is not specific to its definitive hosts. This isthe first record of O. antarcticus from B. physalus in the Mediterranean Sea, a finding which helps confirm the world-wide distribution of this parasite.[.]
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