Bucephalus mytili

Bucephalus mytili
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Platyhelminthes
Class: Trematoda
Subclass: Digenea
Order: Strigeidida
Superfamily: Bucephaloidea
Family: Bucephalidae
Genus: Bucephalus
Species: B. mytili
Binomial name
Bucephalus mytili
Cole 1935

Bucephalus mytili is a parasitic flatworm of the class Trematoda.[1] It is a parasite of fish and a parasitic castrator of the mussel Mytilus edulis, where it destroys the mussel's gonads and causes the mussel to grow much larger than normal.[2]

The cercaria of B. mytili was described in 1935 occurring in Mytilus edulis in Wales. It is the sporocysts, which are long and tangled within the mollusk host's digestive gland, that cause parasitic castration of the host.[3]

References

  1. "Bucephalus mytili Cole, 1935 AphiaID: 109154". ERMS European Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
  2. Kuris, Armand M. (1974). "Trophic interactions: similarity of parasitic castrators to parasitoids" (PDF). Quarterly Review of Biology. 49 (2): 129–148. doi:10.1086/408018.
  3. Russell, Frederick S. (1967). Advances in Marine Biology. Academic Press. pp. 209–211. ISBN 0-12-026105-7.

See also

Bucephalus polymorphus

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