Selfcoelum mertensis Gupta 1970, n. comb.

• Main Authors: Dronen, Norman O., Blend, Charles K.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2015
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Platyhelminthes; Trematoda; Echinostomida; Cyclocoelidae; Selfcoelum; Selfcoelum mertensis; Actitis hypoleucos; Common Sandpiper
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6109225; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/317187CDFFBA7745BEB0A7E69A398BA1

S . mertensis (Gupta, 1970) n. comb. Type host. Common sandpiper, Actitis hypoleucos (Linnaeus) (Charadriiformes: Scolopacidae). Type locality. Merta, Nagaur District, Rajasthan, India. Remarks. This species was originally described as Ophthalmophagus mertensis Gupta, 1970. On the one hand, the position of the posttesticular ovary may have been confused with the “receptaculum seminis uterinum”, as shown in Fig. 3 of the original description and may be more posteriorly situated nearer to the posterior arch of the cyclocoel, which is more typically the case in members of this genus. On the other hand, the “receptaculum seminis uterinum” may be the posterior testis and the anterior testis which is shown as being situated near the midbody may be part of the uterus. If the second situation is true, then this species would have an intertesticular ovary froming a triangle with the diagonal testes and would be assigned to Cyclocoelinae. However, the species was described from a single damaged specimen and it appears that the anterior end is rotated somewhat to the left causing the cirrus sac to be shifted more laterally than normal. We assume that the author is correct and that the ovary is situated off the midline of the body some distance posterior to the anterior testis as is shown in Fig. 3 of the original description (apparently a dorsal view). It should be noted that although both the diameters of the oral sucker (200, but about 690 calculated using the scale provided) and the pharynx (200, but about 350 calculated using the scale provided) are given as being the same, the oral sucker is shown in Fig. 3 as being much wider than the pharynx (about twice as wide). The length of the intertesticular and posttesticular spaces could not be calculated from the original figures because of the lack of verifiable reference measurements and the scale provided. As originally described, the ovary is posttesticular forming an elongate triangle with the testes (Szidatitreminae), the genital pore is postpharyngeal and the ...