| Saccosporidae | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Cnidaria |
| Class: | Malacosporea |
| Order: | Malacovalvulida Canning, Curry, Feist, Longshaw & Okamura, 2000 |
| Family: | Saccosporidae Canning, Okamura & Curry, 1996 |
| Genera | |
Saccosporidae is a family of myxozoans. [1] [2] It is the only family within the class Malacosporea and has only three species, while the other class of Myxozoa, Myxosporea, includes more than a thousand.
Saccosporidae are parasites of fish and freshwater bryozoans. Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae, the only representative of the group whose life cycle is well studied, causes proliferative disease of the kidneys in salmonids. Two stages of the life cycles of the two species in the genus Buddenbrockia are known. One of them is a saccular stage, similar to Tetracapsuloides. During the second stage the animals are mobile and superficially resemble minute worms. Buddenbrockia allmani parasitizes Lophopus crystallinus , while Buddenbrockia plumatellae parasitizes, in particular, Plumatella fungosa .
Strongyloides stercoralis is a human pathogenic parasitic roundworm causing the disease strongyloidiasis. Its common name in the US is threadworm. In the UK and Australia, however, the term threadworm can also refer to nematodes of the genus Enterobius, otherwise known as pinworms.
Kinetoplastida is a group of flagellated protists belonging to the phylum Euglenozoa, and characterised by the presence of a distinctive organelle called the kinetoplast, a granule containing a large mass of DNA. The group includes a number of parasites responsible for serious diseases in humans and other animals, as well as various forms found in soil and aquatic environments. The organisms are commonly referred to as "kinetoplastids" or "kinetoplasts".
Plasmodium is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of Plasmodium species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a vertebrate host during a blood meal. Parasites grow within a vertebrate body tissue before entering the bloodstream to infect red blood cells. The ensuing destruction of host red blood cells can result in malaria. During this infection, some parasites are picked up by a blood-feeding insect, continuing the life cycle.
Myxozoa is a subphylum of aquatic cnidarian animals – all obligate parasites. It contains the smallest animals ever known to have lived. Over 2,180 species have been described and some estimates have suggested at least 30,000 undiscovered species. Many have a two-host lifecycle, involving a fish and an annelid worm or a bryozoan. The average size of a myxosporean spore usually ranges from 10 μm to 20 μm, whereas that of a malacosporean spore can be up to 2 mm. Myxozoans can live in both freshwater and marine habitats.
Trematoda is a class of flatworms known as flukes or trematodes. They are obligate internal parasites with a complex life cycle requiring at least two hosts. The intermediate host, in which asexual reproduction occurs, is usually a snail. The definitive host, where the flukes sexually reproduce, is a vertebrate. Infection by trematodes can cause disease in all five traditional vertebrate classes: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish.
Botflies, also known as warble flies, heel flies, and gadflies, are a family of flies known as the Oestridae. Their larvae are internal parasites of mammals, some species growing in the host's flesh and others within the gut. Dermatobia hominis is the only species of botfly known to parasitize humans routinely, though other species of flies cause myiasis in humans.
Digenea is a class of trematodes in the Platyhelminthes phylum, consisting of parasitic flatworms with a syncytial tegument and, usually, two suckers, one ventral and one oral. Adults commonly live within the digestive tract, but occur throughout the organ systems of all classes of vertebrates. Once thought to be related to the Monogenea, it is now recognised that they are closest to the Aspidogastrea and that the Monogenea are more closely allied with the Cestoda. Around 6,000 species have been described to date.
Coccidia (Coccidiasina) are a subclass of microscopic, spore-forming, single-celled obligate intracellular parasites belonging to the apicomplexan class Conoidasida. As obligate intracellular parasites, they must live and reproduce within an animal cell. Coccidian parasites infect the intestinal tracts of animals, and are the largest group of apicomplexan protozoa.
Myxobolus cerebralis is a myxosporean parasite of salmonids that causes whirling disease in farmed salmon and trout and also in wild fish populations. It was first described in rainbow trout in Germany in 1893, but its range has spread and it has appeared in most of Europe, the United States, South Africa, Canada and other countries from shipments of cultured and wild fish. In the 1980s, M. cerebralis was found to require a tubificid oligochaete to complete its life cycle. The parasite infects its hosts with its cells after piercing them with polar filaments ejected from nematocyst-like capsules. This infects the cartilage and possibly the nervous tissue of salmonids, causing a potentially lethal infection in which the host develops a black tail, spinal deformities, and possibly more deformities in the anterior part of the fish.
Trematodes are parasitic flatworms of the class Trematoda, specifically parasitic flukes with two suckers: one ventral and the other oral. Trematodes are covered by a tegument, that protects the organism from the environment by providing secretory and absorptive functions.
Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae is a myxozoan parasite of salmonid fish. It is the only species currently recognized in the monotypic genus Tetracapsuloides. It is the cause of proliferative kidney disease (PKD), one of the most serious parasitic diseases of salmonid populations in Europe and North America that can result in losses of up to 90% in infected populations.
The family Argulidae, whose members are commonly known as carp lice or fish lice, are parasitic crustaceans in the class Ichthyostraca. It is the only family in the monotypic subclass Branchiura and the order Arguloida, although a second family, Dipteropeltidae, has been proposed. Although they are thought to be primitive forms, they have no fossil record.
The Ustilaginales are an order of fungi within the class Ustilaginomycetes. The order contained 8 families, 49 genera, and 851 species in 2008.
Buddenbrockia plumatellae is a worm-like parasite of bryozoans whose taxonomic placement long puzzled biologists. It is now classified as one of only three myxozoans in the Malacosporea subclass and its only family, Saccosporidae, on the basis of both genetic and ultrastructural studies. It was the first multicellular myxozoan identified and its vermiform shape initially gave strong support to the theory that the enigmatic group belongs among the Bilateria. Five years later, this was refuted by a study of fifty genes from this same "worm", which had rarely even been seen since its discovery in 1851. These 50 phylogenetic markers reveal that Buddenbrockia is closely related to jellyfish and sea anemones, typical members of the animalian phylum Cnidaria. Because of the highly divergent nuclear protein sequences of Buddenbrockia, relative to those of the other animals compared in this study, only the use of a sophisticated tree-building approach allowed for recovery of its cnidarian evolutionary affinities. One of the researchers talked about the problems encountered studying its morphology: “It has no mouth, no gut, no brain and no nerve cord. It doesn’t have a left or right side or a top or bottom – we can’t even tell which end is the front!” As the myxozoans are now demonstrably non-bilaterian in origin, he concluded that “the worm-like body shape evolved at least twice from two completely different kinds of animal.”
Cestoda is a class of parasitic worms in the flatworm phylum (Platyhelminthes). Most of the species—and the best-known—are those in the subclass Eucestoda; they are ribbon-like worms as adults, known as tapeworms. Their bodies consist of many similar units known as proglottids—essentially packages of eggs which are regularly shed into the environment to infect other organisms. Species of the other subclass, Cestodaria, are mainly fish infecting parasites.
Apororhynchus is a genus of small parasitic spiny-headed worms. It is the only genus in the family Apororhynchidae, which in turn is the only member of the order Apororhynchida. A lack of features commonly found in the phylum Acanthocephala suggests an evolutionary branching from the other three orders of class Archiacanthocephala; however no genetic analysis has been completed to determine the evolutionary relationship between species. The distinguishing features of this order among archiacanthocephalans is a highly enlarged proboscis which contain small hooks. The musculature around the proboscis is also structured differently in this order. This genus contains six species that are distributed globally, being collected sporadically in Hawaii, Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. These worms exclusively parasitize birds by attaching themselves around the cloaca using their hook-covered proboscis. The bird hosts are of different orders, including owls, waders, and passerines. Infestation by an Apororhynchus species may cause enteritis and anemia.
Syndinium is a cosmopolitan genus of parasitic dinoflagellates that infest and kill marine planktonic species of copepods and radiolarians. Syndinium belongs to order Syndiniales, a candidate for the uncultured group I and II marine alveolates. The lifecycle of Syndinium is not well understood beyond the parasitic and zoospore stages.
Hematodinium is a genus of dinoflagellates. Species in this genus, such as Hematodinium perezi, the type species, are internal parasites of the hemolymph of crustaceans such as the Atlantic blue crab and Norway lobster. Species in the genus are economically damaging to commercial crab fisheries, including causing bitter crab disease in the large Tanner or snow crab fisheries of the Bering Sea.
Chilomastix is a genus of pyriform excavates within the family Retortamonadidae All species within this genus are flagellated, structured with three flagella pointing anteriorly and a fourth contained within the feeding groove. Chilomastix also lacks Golgi apparatus and mitochondria but does possess a single nucleus. The genus parasitizes a wide range of vertebrate hosts, but is known to be typically non-pathogenic, and is therefore classified as harmless. The life cycle of Chilomastix lacks an intermediate host or vector. Chilomastix has a resistant cyst stage responsible for transmission and a trophozoite stage, which is recognized as the feeding stage. Chilomastix mesnili is one of the more studied species in this genus due to the fact it is a human parasite. Therefore, much of the information on this genus is based on what is known about this one species.
Contracaecum is a genus of parasitic nematodes from the family Anisakidae. These nematodes are parasites of warm-blooded, fish eating animals, i.e. mammals and birds, as sexually mature adults. The eggs and the successive stages of their larvae use invertebrates and increasing size classes of fishes as intermediate hosts. It is the only genus in the family Anisakidae which can infect terrestrial, marine and freshwater animals.
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