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Reisolation and redescription of Balantidium duodeni Stein, 1867 (Litostomatea, Trichostomatia)

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Abstract

In this work, we present reisolation and redescription of Balantidium duodeni Stein, 1867 from the European common brown frog Rana temporaria Linnaeus, 1758 using light and electron microscopy. This species has a unique morphological feature—its cells are flattened along the dorsoventral axis. Because of its unique morphology and localization (duodenum) in the gastrointestinal tract of the host, it has been proposed to recognize B. duodeni as a member of separate genus, Balantidiopsis Penard, 1922. Molecular phylogenetic analysis demonstrates it to be close to the type species Balantidium entozoon (Ehrenberg, 1838). We argue that its placement into separate genus is not substantiated. We also propose to reinstate the genus Balantioides Alexeieff, 1931 with the type species Paramecium coli (Malmstein, 1857). The recently proposed generic name for this taxon, Neobalantidium Pomajbíková et al., 2013, is a junior synonym of the previously recognized name.

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Acknowledgments

This work was done with a financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (12-04-00767-а) using equipment and resources of the Life Science Research Centre (University of Ostrava), Facility Centers “Culturing collections of microorganisms” and “Chromas” (St. Petersburg State University).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facility “Centre for culturing collections of microorganisms”, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia, 199034

    Lyudmila V. Chistyakova

  2. Life Science Research Centre, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Chittussiho 10, 710 00, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Alexei Yu. Kostygov & Vyacheslav Yurchenko

  3. Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, 199034

    Alexei Yu. Kostygov

  4. Department of Zoology, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia, 191186

    Olga A. Kornilova

  5. Biology Centre, Institute of Parasitology, Czech Academy of Sciences, 370 05, České Budějovice (Budweis), Czech Republic

    Vyacheslav Yurchenko

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  1. Lyudmila V. Chistyakova
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  2. Alexei Yu. Kostygov
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  3. Olga A. Kornilova
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  4. Vyacheslav Yurchenko
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Correspondence to Vyacheslav Yurchenko.

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Chistyakova, L.V., Kostygov, A.Y., Kornilova, O.A. et al. Reisolation and redescription of Balantidium duodeni Stein, 1867 (Litostomatea, Trichostomatia). Parasitol Res 113, 4207–4215 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-014-4096-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-014-4096-1

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