Fauna europaea: helminths (animal parasitic).

Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level (up to the Urals, excluding the Caucasus region), and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. Helminths parasitic in animals represent a large assemblage of worms, representing three phyla, with more than 200 families and almost 4,000 species of parasites from all major vertebrate and many invertebrate groups. A general introduction is given for each of the major groups of parasitic worms, i.e. the Acanthocephala, Monogenea, Trematoda (Aspidogastrea and Digenea), Cestoda and Nematoda. Basic information for each group includes its size, host-range, distribution, morphological features, life-cycle, classification, identification and recent key-works. Tabulations include a complete list of families dealt with, the number of species in each and the name of the specialist responsible for data acquisition, a list of additional specialists who helped with particular groups, and a list of higher taxa dealt with down to the family level. A compilation of useful references is appended.

Moravecnema segonzaci gen. et sp. n. (Nematoda: Cystidicolidae) from Pachycara thermophilum (Zoarcidae), a deep-sea hydrothermal vent fish from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

A new cystidicolid nematode, Moravecnema segonzaci gen. et sp. n. is described from the intestine of the teleost fish Pachycara thermophilum Geistdoerfer (Zoarcidae) from the hydrothermal sites Logatchev and Snake Pit-Moose of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, at depths of 3,008; 3,492, and 3,510 m. The new genus Moravecnema is characterised by a dorsoventrally elongated oral opening, rudimentary pseudolabia, and four pairs of precloacal and six pairs of postcloacal caudal papillae in the male. The species has two spicules of unequal length, about 330 and 80 microm long. Males are about 5 mm and females about 5-10 mm long. Eggs have long thin polar filaments. This is the first species of parasitic nematode described from a fish endemic to hydrothermal deep-sea vents.