Dr. Éva Murai szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 1. 1982 (Budapest, 1982)

Sey, O.: The morphology, life-cycle and geographical distribution of Paramphistomum cervi (Zeder, 1790) (Trematoda: Paramphistomata)

paper, P. cervi became an "assembling" species. By overestimating the individual variations he has sunk eight species into its synonyms whereby P. cervi was furnished with many kinds of morphological pecularities along with a broad geographical range. MAP LES TONE'

s (1923) notion on the nature of specific features has seemingly influenced succeeding authors (FUKUI, 1929; STUNKARD, 1929; BAYLIS, 1929; TRAVASSOS, 1934; DAWES, 1936), and its effects are, sometimes, recognizable even now. In his monograph NÄSMARK (1937) successfuly realized LOOSS's (1912) conjecture that the most important, if not the single, specific features of the closely releated species of paramphistomids can be found in the structure of the genital opening. The conception worked out by NÄSMARK (1937) is an important contribution to the classification of the amphistomes but in some cases, as is the case with P. cervi

, the critical consideration does not seem indispensable. Since the first description of scientific value (FISCHOEDER, 1903) the scope of the morphological characters of P. cervi has varied depending on the number of the synonyms designated by subsequent authors writing about newly discovered rumen flukes. Accordingly, its geographical distribution has altered along with the change in synonymous terms and hence P. cervi was indicated in some text-books as a species having cosmopolitan distribution. This paper intends to clear up the confusion in connection with P. cervi and to summarize information accumulated on this species as to the topics involved by the title. MATERIALS AND METHODS Samples of the test material available, suspected to have been involved P. cervi derived from the areas below; countries in brackets are included from which samples were expressly labelled as P. cervi: from Europe almost every country (SEY, 1980b); from Asia: Afganistan, (India), Indonesia, Iraq, (Iran), Malaysia, (Mongolia), China, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam; from Africa: Algeria, (Angola), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Chad, Congo, Egypt, (Ethiopia), (Ghana), (Guinea), Kenya, Morocco, Niger, Rhodesia, Togoland, Tanzania, Uganda and (Malagassy); from Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, (Cuba), Guyana, Venezuela, (USA) and New Zealand. Samples of the said countries were made available for examination, in part, by the USNM Helminthological Collection, Beltsville, USA; the Muséum D'Histoire Naturelle, Geneva, Switzerland; Zoologisches Museum, Berlin, GDR; Muséum D'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France; Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria; Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden and several colleagues with whom rumen fluke examinations were carried out in collaboration. More than two hundreds of median sagittal sections were prepared by the usual method. In the life-cycle study the eggs had been collected from mature flukes after having been removed from rumina of red deer shot in the State Forestry and Game Reserve, Gemenc, Hungary. Laboratory reared Planorbis planorbis were used as intermediate hosts and susceptibility of young specimens of Bulinus truncatu

s of Sardinia were also tested. As a final host roe deer was used. In the course of the life-cycle study the applied method was as described earlier (SEY, 1979a). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION FISCHOEDER'

s (1903) description of P. cervi was based on morphological features and it was supplemented by NÄSMARK (1937), attributing an important role to the histological structure of the muscular organs. According to him the pharynx was designated as a Liorchis-, the genital opening as a Gracile- and the acetabulum as a Paramphistomum-type. He remarked that the papillae in the pharynx were inconspicuous and the genital opening was entirely without radial musculature. Divergent opinions can already be found in the old literature on the presence or the absence of the papillae situated in the pharynx. OTTO (1896) did not find them in specimens which had died in water before fixation while BLUMBERG (1871) and FISCHOEDER (1903) found this structure in every examined specimen. Recent examinations (KATKOV et al., 1971; KAMBUROV, 1977; ZDZITOWIECKI et al., 1977; GRAUBMANN et al., 1978; ODENING & GRÄFNER, 1979) and personal observations, based on sections of specimens both treated and non-treated in watsr before fixation showed that in the latter ones the papillae were constant elements (about 30 jum in length) of the pharynx and their absence was the consequence of the watery pretreatment, as observed by OTTO (1896).