Occurrence of symbiotic turbellarians in the oyster,Crassostrea virginica

✍ Scribed by Lesley C. Fleming

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 659 KB
• Volume: 132
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-5141
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00046265

✦ Synopsis

Crassostrea virginica was collected from several locations where it is cultured, both along the Northumberland Strait of New Brunswick and Malpeque Bay on the coast of Prince Edward Island . The oysters were found with two turbellarians on their gills . Urastoma cyprinae (Graff) was found in the oysters mostly during the warmer months of the year in numbers averaging as high as 50 worms per host (N = 50) and with as much as 78% of the host population infected (N = 100) . Paravortex gemellipara (Linton) was also found during warmer months, but much less frequently or abundantly .

Both male and female oysters were found to have U. cyprinae . No eggs or recent young of U. cyprinae were found in hosts ; female-mature individuals of P gemellipara with young were found from June through August .