Detailed postmortem examination of southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) found along the California (USA) coast has provided an exceptional opportunity to understand factors influencing survival in this threatened marine mammal species. In order to evaluate recent trends in causes of mortality, the demographic and geographic distribution of causes of death in freshly deceased beachcast se...

background: acanthocephalans are fish parasites of worldwide distribu-tion, penetrate their thorny proboscis into the intestinal wall of host and absorb nutrients. no diagnostic tool is available except postmortem inves-tigations and identification by parasitologists. the aim of present study was to explore and assign taxonomical status to pallisentis species prevalent in food fishes of river g...

Acanthocephalan Moniliformis moniliformis is a parasite of rodents, rarely also reported from carnivorous mammals. One female specimen of this parasite has been found in the small intestine of red fox Vulpes vulpes. It is the first report about this species invading the red fox in Poland.

Body wall muscles of an acanthocephalan Macracanthorhynchus hirudinaceus were studied by means of scanning and light microscopy and intracellular recording of potentials. Three types of spontaneous potential changes were found: larger (L) potentials which usually exhibited overshoot and were as large as 65 mV; smaller symmetric (A) potentials approximately 15 mV in amplitude; and even smaller a...

Sir, Acanthocephalan (“spiny-headed”) worms are enteroparasites of birds characterised by a retractile proboscis armed with rows of thorns (Lacina & Bird, 2000). They penetrate the intestinal mucosa with the proboscis causing inflammation and nodules (Heidenreich, 1997). An arthropod (insect or mollusk) becomes the first intermediate host ingesting acanthocephalan eggs that contain the larvae (...

Larval helminths that share the same intermediate host may or may not also share the same de®nitive hosts. If one or more of these helminth species can manipulate the phenotype of the intermediate host, there can be great advantages or severe costs for other helminths resulting from co-occurring with a manipulator, depending on whether they have the same de®nitive host or not. Among 2372 specim...

The acanthocephalan Echinorhynchus salmonis Müller, 1784 is a common parasite of salmonid fish, but it has rarely been reported from an intermediate host. Samples of benthic amphipods, Monoporeia affinis (Lindström), were taken from multiple, deep sites (usually below 70 m) in the Gulf of Bothnia over the course of more than a decade and examined for acanthocephalans. Overall, only 0.44% of 23 ...