The genus Pustulatirus Vermeij and Snyder, 2006 (Gastropoda: Fasciolariidae: Peristerniinae) in the western Atlantic, with descriptions of three new species.

Western Atlantic species of the New World genus Pustulatirus Vermeij and Snyder, 2006 are revised. Types of previously named taxa are figured. Species recognized as valid include P. attenuata (Reeve, 1847), range uncertain; P. eppi (Melvill, 1891), Curagao; P. ogum (Petuch, 1979), northeastern Brazil; and P. virginensis (Abbott, 1958), Bahama Islands and eastern Caribbean Sea to Aruba. Latirus karinae Nowell-Usticke, 1969 is confirmed as ajunior subjective synonym of P. virginensis. Syrinx annulata Röding, 1798, treated as a Caribbean Pustulatirus by Vermeij and Snyder (2006), and Latirus annulatus Melvill, 1891 are regarded as species inquirenda. Three new species are described: P biocellatus, northeastern Brazil; P. utilaensis, Bay Islands, Honduras and northwestern Panamá; and P. watermanorum, Honduras continental shelf and offshore Colombian banks. Most western Atlantic Pustulatirus shells exhibit little intraspecific variability in morphology or color and occur within rather precise, well-defined ranges; an exception is P. virginensis, whose shells exhibit much variability in size, morphology and color.

Replicating Anatomical Teaching Specimens Using 3D Modeling Embedded Within a Multimodal e-Learning Course: Pre-Post Study Exploring the Impact on Medical Education During COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant effects on anatomy education. During the pandemic, students have had no access to cadavers, which has been the principal method of learning anatomy. We created and tested a customized congenital heart disease e-learning course for medical students that contained interactive 3D models of anonymized pediatric congenital heart defects. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to assess whether a multimodal e-learning course contributed to learning outcomes in a cohort of first-year undergraduate medical students studying congenital heart diseases. The secondary aim is to assess student attitudes and experiences associated with multimodal e-learning. METHODS: The pre-post study design involved 290 first-year undergraduate medical students. Recruitment was conducted by course instructors. Data were collected before and after using the course. The primary outcome was knowledge acquisition (test scores). The secondary outcomes included attitudes and experiences, time to complete the modules, and browser metadata. RESULTS: A total of 141 students were included in the final analysis. Students' knowledge significantly improved by an average of 44.6% (63/141) when using the course (SD 1.7%; Z=-10.287; P<.001). Most students (108/122, 88.3%) were highly motivated to learn with the course, and most (114/122, 93.5%) reported positive experiences with the course. There was a strong correlation between attitudes and experiences, which was statistically significant (rs=0.687; P<.001; n=122). No relationships were found between the change in test scores and attitudes (P=.70) or experiences (P=.47). Students most frequently completed the e-learning course with Chrome (109/141, 77.3%) and on Apple macOS (86/141, 61%) or Windows 10 (52/141, 36.9%). Most students (117/141, 83%) had devices with high-definition screens. Most students (83/141, 58.9%) completed the course in <3 hours. CONCLUSIONS: Multimodal e-learning could be a viable solution in improving learning outcomes and experiences for undergraduate medical students who do not have access to cadavers. Future research should focus on validating long-term learning outcomes.

Precision and spatial variation of cyathostomin mucosal larval counts.

Cyathostomins are pervasive parasites of equids across the world. Larval stages encyst in the mucosa of the cecum, ventral and dorsal colon and can induce an inflammatory response leading to larval cyathostominosis, a life-threatening generalized typhlocolitis. Mucosal digestion is the only gold standard procedure for identifying and quantifying all larval stages. There is a lack of standardization of this technique and several aspects are ambiguous, such as precision of the method and the possibility of spatial variation of mucosal larval counts. The aim of this study was to estimate precision for enumeration of early third stage larvae (EL3) and late third stage/fourth stage (LL3/L4) larvae and investigate spatial variation of encysted counts within large intestinal organs. Six naturally infected and untreated horses aged 2-5 years were euthanized as part of an anthelmintic efficacy study, and the cecum (Cec), ventral colon (VC) and dorsal colon (DC) were collected. Each organ was rinsed, weighed, and visually separated into 3 equally sized sections. Two 5% tissue samples were collected from each section, a total of six replicates per organ. The mucosae were digested, and 2% examined under the microscope for presence of EL3 and LL3/L4 stage larvae. Overall, 59 % of the harvested larvae were EL3s, and 41 % were LL3/L4s. The ventral colons represented 45 % of the total organ weight, and contributed 37 and 41 % of the EL3s and LL3/L4s harvested, respectively. The Cec, representing only 27 % of the weight contributed 23 % of EL3s and 47 % of LL3/L4s. The DC represented 28 % of the total organ weight, and 28 % and 12 % of the total EL3s and LL3/L4s, respectively. Coefficients of variation varied from 33 to 183 % for EL3 counts and 38-245% for LL3/L4 counts. There were no statistically significant associations between EL3 counts and either organ or location. For LL3/L4 counts there were no statistically significant differences between the three locations within organs (p = 0.1166), but the DC had significantly lower counts than the other two organs (p < 0.0001). Increasing the number of mucosal replicates from each organ improved estimation, but required a considerably increased workload. In conclusion, mucosal larval cyathostomin counts are highly variable, complicating their use for treatment efficacy estimation.

Diagnosing Strongylus vulgaris in pooled fecal samples.

Strongylus vulgaris is the most pathogenic intestinal helminth parasite infecting horses. The migrating larvae in the mesenteric blood vessels can cause non-strangulating intestinal infarctions, which have a guarded prognosis for survival. Infections are typically diagnosed by coproculture, but a PCR test is available in some countries. While it is ideal to test horses individually, many veterinarians and clients wish to pool samples to reduce workload and cost of the diagnostic method. The purpose of this study was to determine if pooling of fecal samples would negatively impact diagnostic performance of the coproculture and the PCR for determination of S. vulgaris infection. Ten horses with strongylid eggs per gram (EPG) >500 and confirmed as either S. vulgaris positive or negative were selected as fecal donors. Eight pools with feces from five horses were created with 0%, 10 %, 20 %, 30 %, 40 %, 50 %, 80 %, and 100 % S. vulgaris positive feces. From each pool, 20 subsamples of 10 g each were collected and analyzed. Half of these samples were set up for coproculture and the other half for PCR. All pools containing 50 % or greater S. vulgaris positive feces were detected positive by both PCR and coproculture. In the pools with less than 50 % S. vulgaris positive feces, the PCR detected 33 positive samples compared to 24 with the coproculture. Three samples from the 0% pool were detected as low-level PCR positives, but this could be due to contamination. These results indicate that diagnosing S. vulgaris on pooled samples is reliable, when at least 50 % of the feces in a pool are from S. vulgaris positive animals. Since S. vulgaris remains relatively rare in managed horses, however, some diagnostic sensitivity is expected to be lost with a pooled sample screening approach. Nonetheless, pooled sample screening on farms could still be considered useful under some circumstances, and the PCR generally performed better at the lower proportions of S. vulgaris positive feces.

Reassignments to the Genus Marmorofusus Snyder amp; Lyons, 2014 (Neogastropoda: Fasciolariidae: Fusininae) of species from the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and southwestern Australia.

Twelve species from the Bay of Bengal, the Red Sea, the western Indian Ocean, and southwestern Australia are reclassified in Marmorofusus. These include: Murex undulatus Gmelin, 1791, a senior synonym of Murex variegatus Perry, 1811 and Fusus laticostatus Deshayes, 1831, formerly regarded as a junior synonym of Marmorofusus nicobaricus (Röding, 1798); Murex verrucosus Gmelin, 1791 (synonyms Fusus tuberculatus Anton, 1839 non Lamarck, 1822, F. marmoratus Philippi, 1846 and F. rudicostatus G.B. Sowerby II, 1880); F. polygonoides Lamarck, 1822 (synonym F. biangulatus Deshayes, 1833); F. tuberculatus (Lamarck, 1822) (synonyms Fusus indicus Anton, 1839, F. maculiferus Tapparone Canefri, 1875, Fusinus t. priscai Bozzetti, 2013 and F. t. fuscobandatus Bozzetti, 2017); Fusus philippii Jonas in Philippi, 1846, an earlier name for Fusus tessellatus G.B. Sowerby II, 1880 (other probable synonyms Fusus exilis Menke, 1843, non Conrad, 1832 and Fusinus dampieri Finlay, 1930, replacement name for F. exilis Menke); Fusus oblitus (Reeve, 1847) (synonym Fusus turrispictus Hedley, 1918); F. leptorhynchus Tapparone Canefri, 1875 (synonym F. subquadratus G.B. Sowerby II, 1880), Fusinus vercoi Snyder, 2004; F. wellsi Snyder, 2004; F. brianoi Bozzetti, 2006; F. verbinneni Snyder, 2006; and F. bishopi Petuch Berschauer, 2017. Fusus toreuma Deshayes, 1843, sometimes misidentified as M. tuberculatus, is a member of the Fusinus colus (Linnaeus, 1758) species group.

Fasciolariidae (Gastropoda: Neogastropoda) of French Guiana and nearby regions, with descriptions of two new species and comments on marine zoogeography of northeastern South America.

The fasciolariid fauna from two expeditions to French Guiana is examined and augmented with published records and material of other collections from the Guianas and northeastern Brazil. Twelve species of Fasciolaria and Aurantilaria (Fasciolariinae), Aristofusus, Lyonsifusus and Fusinus s.l. (Fusininae), and Lamellilatirus and Polygona (Peristerniinae) are reported and discussed. Nine species are represented in expedition collections, and reports of three other species are evaluated. Two morphologically distinct species of Lamellilatirus are described as new; type localities of both are off French Guiana, 114-118 m. Ten Guianan fasciolariids range variously northward to Caribbean South America and the Lesser Antilles and southward to Ceará, Brazil; one other extends into the northern Caribbean, and one extends southward to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.