The Davis Mountains cottontail, Sylvilagus robustus, is morphologically different from the eastern cottontail, S. floridanus, but previous genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA data did not recover 2 genetically distinct groups. Our study used a nuclear DNA fingerprinting technique, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), to test the hypothesis that S. robustus is genetically distinct fr...

In contrast with the marine reaches of estuaries, few studies have dealt with zooplankton grazing on phytoplankton in the upper estuarine reaches, where freshwater zooplankton species tend to dominate the zooplankton community. In spring and early summer 2003, grazing by microand mesozooplankton on phytoplankton was investigated at three sites in the upper Schelde estuary. Grazing by mesozoopla...

Wings of a Rhodnius specimen from Alto Beni (Bolivia) was examined for identification and compared with R. stali, R. robustus, (certified Bolivian species), R. pictipes and R. prolixus (suspected Bolivian species). A projection of the unidentified wings as supplementary data into a discriminant analysis of shape revealed clear cut differences with R. stali and R. pictipes, less differences with...

The Davis Mountains cottontail, Sylvilagus robustus, is an endemic species of the Trans-Pecos area of Texas. Although S. robustus previously was believed to be extirpated from the Chisos Mountains, we confirmed existence of a population. We examined intrapopulation and interpopulation variation in S. robustus, as well as the genetic relationship to the eastern cottontail (S. floridanus) using p...

Chagas disease is one of the main parasitic diseases found in Latin America and it is estimated that between six and seven million people are infected worldwide. Its etiologic agent, the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is transmitted by triatomines, some of which from the genus Rhodnius. Twenty species are currently recognized in this genus, including some closely related species with low levels o...

Rhodnius barretti, a new triatomine species, is described based on adult specimens collected in rainforest environments within the Napo ecoregion of western Amazonia (Colombia and Ecuador). R. barretti resembles Rhodnius robustus s.l., but mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequences reveal that it is a strongly divergent member of the "robustus lineage", i.e., basal to the clade encompassing Rhod...

Cambarus (Puncticambarus) theepiensis is a stream-dwelling crayfish that appears to be endemic to the junction of the Cumberland Mountains with the Appalachian Plateau in West Virginia and Kentucky. Within this region, it is prevalent in the Guyandotte and Twelvepole basins of West Virginia, the Little Sandy River and Levisa Fork basins of Kentucky, and tributaries of the Big Sandy River shared...

Aspects of the life cycle of the nematomorph Gordius robustus were investigated. Gordius robustus larvae fed to Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) readily penetrated and subsequently encysted in the posterior portion of the midgut wall. Parasite development was then arrested in each infected beetle. Upon feeding these cysts to laboratory-reared Gryllus firmus, worm larvae developed to...

The existence of Rhodnius robustus as a species distinct from Rhodnius prolixus has long been the main epidemiological question about Chagas disease transmission in Venezuela and surrounding countries. These two taxa are morphologically and genetically very similar, but only R. prolixus is assumed to colonize houses and transmit Chagas disease to humans. R. robustus is assumed to be an exclusiv...