Strongylus ventricosus, R., 1809

“

Strongylus ventricosus, R. ”

“ Strongylus : with a thin, winged head, a male blunt bursa behind, and a female tail awl-shaped.

Hab: four specimens found in the upper part of the intestines of the Cervus elaphus , February (1809, current note)

Description: worms six to eight “lines” long, very thin, reddish.

Male: the head is thin and winged by a thin membrane on both sides. The body is thin and almost linear toward the middle, and then it gradually thickens and forms the genital bursa at the end. This is obtuse, radiating, with thinly folded membranes, so that Icannot tell the number of lobes. Athin feeding tube, running through the middle of the body, gives the worm a striated face.

Female: the head as in male, but in another specimen the wing-shaped membrane is wider. The body is linear anteriorly, in the third part of the worm it is initially very thick, as if knotted, then thins again, the tail is awl-shaped. The vulva is partially protruding” [sic].

The type material of the species S. ventricosus Rudolphi, 1809 , was deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin) under no. AHC 49508 . It is in the form of permanent slides made from five voucher specimens of deer trichostrongylid parasites (one male and four females) . As a final step to clarify the species affiliation of Cooperia sp. from Czech deer, our new material was compared to the five voucher specimens of deer trichostrongylid parasites. Unfortunately, all five specimens are in poor condition, and only the male bursa is intact, although it is also considerably damaged ( Figure 7 View FIGURE 7 ).

Morphology of the bursa and spicules of the type specimen Strongylus ventricosus Rudolphi, 1809 (measurements in mm from Figure 7 View FIGURE 7 ): bursa 306 wide, spicules 308 long on average, maximum spicule width 61, Each spicule has four parts: short head, two middle parts (barrel neck and bulky belly) which are difficult to distinguish, and clearly visible characteristic thin tail 51 long on average which represents 16.5% of the spicule length.

Although all structures are quite damaged, the size of the spicules matches well with Cooperia sp. males from Czech deer (in the Morphological description, subsection of the Results sections). Some of the slightly larger dimensions of the spicule parts were probably caused by flattening during the preparation of permanent slides of the museum material. The data from the original description of S. ventricosus also concur with the morphology of Cooperia sp. from Czech deer.

As there is a good agreement between our new material ( Cooperia sp. from Czech deer) and the voucher specimens of the deer trichostrongylid parasite S. ventricosus , which were registered in the Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin), the transfer of the ancient species S. ventricosus Rudolphi, 1809 , into the genus Cooperia , and the creation of the species Cooperia ventricosa comb. nov. should be seriously considered. The ideal solution to the problem would be to obtain new material for nematodes of the genus Cooperia from the type host Cervus elaphus from the type locality near Greifswald (Germany), and to redescribe C. ventricosa according to the stricter ICZN rules (25).