Dr. Murai Éva szerk.: Parasitologia Hungarica 26. (Budapest, 1993)

Remarks: The genus Pseudangularia was described by Burt (1938) for two species, P. thompsoni Burt, 1938 (type-species) and P. triplacantha Burt, 1938, parasitizing Collocalia unicolor (Apodiformes, Apodidae) in Sri Lanka. Spasskaja and Spassky (1977) also placed Mehdiangularia swifti Shinde, 1969, from Apus affinis in India in Pseudangularia as they considered the monotypic genus Mehdiangularia to be a synonym of Pseudangularia. This synonymy was also accepted by Bona (in press). Galkin (1983) also placed P. brachycolpos (Dollfus, 1958) (=Anomotaenia brachycolpos Dollfus, 1958), in this genus; this species was described from Apus paliidus in Morocco (Dollfus 1958a, 1958b) and reported from ,4. apus in Spain (Illescas Gomez and Lopez-Roman 1980). Galkin (1983) found one scolex of Pseudangularia sp. from A. apus in the Kurish Spit (Baltic coast). The genus Pseudangularia currently includes, therefore, four species parasitizing apodiform birds of the genera Collocalia and Apus; its geographical range includes Europe, Northern Africa and South Asia. In comparison with the species mentioned above, the present specimens have a larger cirrus-sac (528 - 630 x 58 - 103). They are easily distinguished by this character from P. thompsoni, P. brachycolpos and P. swifti, which have a relatively short, rounded cirrus-sac [240 x 115 (Burt 1938), 180 - 230 x 100 - 108 (Dollfus 1958a) and 170 x 50 (Shinde 1969), respectively]. The cirrus-sac does not cross the middle of the proglottis in these three species; but in the the Hungarian material, when fully developed, it reaches the aporal side of the median field. The cirrus-sac of P. triplacantha is similarly elongate to the Hungarian material and reaches to the aporal osmoregulatory canals, but it has smaller absolute dimensions [470 x 81, according to Burt (1938); 457 - 527 x 95 - 108 (av. 488 x 103, n=5), according to the present re-examination of the types]. Another morphological difference between the present material and P. triplacantha is associated with the dimensions of the vagina. The vagina of the present form is relatively short, extending from the genital atrium to the point where the female genital ducts cross the cirrus-sac; in contrast, the vagina of P. triplacantha is very large, 'extending from the opening into the ductus hermaphroditus at the base of the cirrus to the centre of the proglottis' (Burt 1938). The present re-examination of the type-specimens of P. triplacantha showed that its vaginal lumen is 305 - 400 long and 44 - 63 wide (av. 370 x 54, n=4), while the lumen of the vagina of the Hungarian specimens is little more than half this size. These comparisons indicate that the specimens from Apus apus from Hungary cannot be considered as conspecific with any of the known species of the genus Pseudangularia. On this basis, we regard them as a new species, which we name Pseudangularia europaea sp. n. The phenomenon of the breaking of the cirrus during the copulation is known for another dilepidid cestode with vaginal sclerites, i.e. Sureshia trychopea Kayton et Kritsky, 1984. However, in the latter species the cirrus lost by the partner is usually found in the vagina (Kayton and Kritsky 1984) while in P. europaea the terminal flagellum-like portion is situated in the seminal receptacle.