Nematostrigea serpens (nom.nov.) a Redescription of Holostomum serpens Nitzsch 1819

Extract

The material upon which this paper is based was secured in May, 1930, from a specimen of Scopus umbretta bannermani C. H. B. Grant (Ciconiiformes) which had been shot by a native on the Buzi River in Mozambique, about 40 miles from the eastern border of the Melsetter District of Southern Rhodesia. Several hours elapsed before the bird was brought into camp and its skin prepared for museum purposes, and our parasitological examination of the specimen was carried out under some difficulty with failing light. No worms were found in the alimentary tract, but on removing the liver and teasing this organ apart about twenty trematodes were recovered. To the naked eye these appeared very similar to schistosomes and, accepting this as a tentative diagnosis, we assumed that the parasites had been loosened from an abode in the branches of the hepatic portal vein. Considerably later, when we sought to identify the formalin-preserved specimens, it became evident that we had chanced upon an infection with a species of “holostome” closely related if not identical with that atypical and obscurely known form, Holostomum serpens.