Biology:Discocotyle sagittata

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Short description: Species of flatworm

Discocotyle sagittata
Scientific classification edit
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Platyhelminthes
Class: Monogenea
Order: Mazocraeidea
Family: Discocotylidae
Genus: Discocotyle
Species:
D. sagittata
Binomial name
Discocotyle sagittata
(Leuckart, 1842)
Synonyms
  • Octobothrium sagittata Leuckart, 1842

Discocotyle sagittata is a species of freshwater monogenean gill ectoparasites of Salmo and Oncorhynchus. Their lifestyle is characterised by a free-living larval stage that may be inhaled by a suitable freshwater fish host, after which they may attach upon expulsion over the gill onto a single gill filament. Upon reaching maturity, parasites can remain attached by a posterior opisthaptor with its 8 associated clamps (4 in 2 rows). Adults may reach a few millimetres in length. D. sagittata feeds on the blood of the gills via an anterior mouth part. Adults are hermaphrodite, and produce 3–14 eggs per day at 13 °C, a process which is temperature dependent.[1] Once produced, eggs drop to the riverbed surface and at 13 °C take 28 days to develop to hatching larval forms. Major parasite burden can result in damage to the host gill and anaemia from blood loss.

References

  1. Gannicott, AM; Tinsley, RC (2014-05-14). "Environmental effects on transmission of Discocotyle sagittata (Monogenea): egg production and development". Parasitology 117 (5): 499–504. doi:10.1017/s0031182098003205. PMID 9836315. 

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