Hemiuridae Lühe, 1901 »
Halipeginae Ejsmont, 1931 »
Halipegus Looss, 1899 »
Halipegus mehransis, Srivastava 1933
(H. mehransis minutus Srivastava, 1933; H. spindale Srivastava, 1933)
Shillong (Meghalaya), Dimapur (Nagaland)
Body spindle shaped, with bluntly pointed ends, tegument smooth, 4.69-5.58 mm in length, 1.24-1.39 mm in maximum width. Oral sucker sub-terminal, nearly half the size of ventral sucker.Ventral sucker situated in equatorial zone, in middle of body, large, prominent, muscular. Pharynx globular, overlapping oral sucker; oesophagus extremely short. Intestinal caeca broad, wavy with several marked constrictions, extending posteriorly even beyond vitellaria. Testes massive, oblong, extracaecal, roughly triangular in outline, situated obliquely posterior to ventral sucker, close behind anterior half of body. Vesicula seminalis flask shaped, situated slightly to right, little behind intestinal bifurcation, narrowing anteriorly to form ductus ejaculatorius, latter continuingÂ into nipple-shaped cone or papilla. Genital pore post-bifurcal, usually median. Ovary roughly triangular, inter-caecal, post-testicular, lying just in front of left vitelline gland, close to median line. Laurer's canal present. Vitellaria in two groups, ventral to and little in front of blind extremities of intestinal caeca, one on each side, close behind ovary and Mehlis' gland, symmetrical; right vitellarium with four well-marked lobes, left with five. Receptaculum seminis uterinum present. Uterus with numerous, tranverse convolutions, extending laterally up to body wall both in front and behind ventral sucker, never extending behind Mehlis' gland mass or vitellaria, anteriorly ending of post-bifurcal zone, extra-caecal at places, opening on genital papilla very close to male opening. Eggs numerous,Â 0.031-0.037 x 0.011-0.014 mm in size, with longÂ (0.02-0.032 mm) polar filament. Excretory pore terminal at posterior end of body.
Originally this was described from the same host and habitat in Uttar Pradesh. Other locality records of H. mehransis in India include Rajasthan (Gupta, 1970), Maharashtra (Mukherjee and Ghosh, 1972), Bihar (Sinha et al., 1974) and Tamil Nadu and Kerala (Singh, 1977) with the host being Rana cyanophlyctis and/or R. tigrina. Besides these anuran amphibian hosts, the speciesÂ also has been reported from a reptilian host in Andhra Pradesh (Simha, 1958).
Some more species are described in the genus Halipegus fromÂ India. Klein (1905) described H. longispina based on two specimens collected from Indian frog. According to Rankin (1944) the description of Klein was based on highly distorted specimens, all the variations falling within the range of those of H. ovocaudatus (Vulpian, 1860) Looss, 1899. He, therefore,Â regraded H. longispina as synonym of H. ovocaudatus, the type species of the genus. H. spindale, also described by Srivastava (1933) from the same host and locality as that of H. mehransis is rightly regarded aÂ synonym of the latter by Rankin (1944).
Gupta and Agrawal (1967) described a new species, H. udaipurensis from R. cyanophlyctis in Rajasthan and Gupta and Chopra, (1986), H. ambalensis from the same host in Haryana. In conformity with the views of Pandey (1975), H. udaipurensis, as also H. ambalensis is regarded as synonymous with H. mehransis.Â
Klein, W. (1905). Neue Distomen aus Rana hexadactyla. Zoologische Jahrbucher Abteilung fur Systematik. 22:pp 1-22.
Rankin, J. S. (1944). A review of the trematode genus Halipegus Looss, 1899, with an account of the life history if H. ampherstensis n. sp. Transactions of American Microscopical Society. 63(2):pp 149-164.
Looss, A. (1899). Weitere Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Trematodenfauna Aegyptens, zugleich Versuch einer naturlichem Gliederung des Genus Distomum Retzius. Zoologische Jahrbüecher Abteilüng Füer Systematik, Oekoiogie und Geographie Der Tiere. 12:pp 521-784.
Srivastava, H. D. (1933). On new trematodes of frogs and fishes of the United Provinces, India. Part I. Distomes of the family Hemiuridae from North Indian fishes and frogs with a systematic discussion on the family Halipegidae and the genera Vitellotrema Guberlet and Genarchopsis Ozaki. Bulletin of Academy of Science U.P. Agra & Oudh. 3(1):pp 41-60.
Gupta, S. P. and Agrawal, V. (1967). On a new trematode, Halipegus udaipurensis n. sp. from Rana cyanophlyctis from Udaipur. Indian Journal of Helminthology.19(1):pp 77-80.
Gupta, N. K. and Chopra, R.(1986). On digenetic trematodes of amphibians from India. Part I. Research Bulletin of Panjab University. 35:pp 1-6.
Pandey, K. C. (1975). Studies on some known and unknown trematode parasites. Indian Journal of Zoology. 14(3):pp 197-219.