Anoplocephaloides cf. dentata (Galli-Valerio, 1905)

Haukisalmi, Voitto, Henttonen, Heikki, Hardman, Lotta, Hardman, Michael, Laakkonen, Juha, Murueva, Galina, Niemimaa, Jukka, Shulunov, Stanislav & Vapalahti, Olli, 2009, Review of tapeworms of rodents in the Republic of Buryatia, with emphasis on anoplocephalid cestodes, ZooKeys 8 (8), pp. 1-18 : 5-7

Anoplocephaloides cf. dentata (Galli-Valerio, 1905)

The names Paranoplocephala dentata (Galli-Valerio, 1905) , Anoplocephaloides dentata (Galli-Valerio, 1905) and Paranoplocephala brevis Kirshenblat, 1938 have been variously used for small, wedge-shaped cestodes parasitizing voles of the genera Microtus and Chionomys Miller (and occasionally other hosts) in the Palaearctic region. The position of A. dentata within the genus Anoplocephaloides Baer, 1923 , as suggested by Rausch (1976), has been generally accepted. Following Spasskii (1951), P. brevis has been consistently regarded as a junior synonym of A. dentata . Thus, all A. dentata -like cestodes in the Palaearctic voles have been considered a single species, with the exception of Anoplocephaloides dentatoides Sato, Kamiya, Tenora & Kamiya, 1993 from Myodes rufocanus from Hokkaido, Japan (see Sato et al. 1993).

A recent molecular phylogenetic analysis ( Haukisalmi et al. 2009) suggested that A. dentata -like cestodes include at least five species (plus A. dentatoides ) in the Holarctic region: four species in western Eurasia and one in the rest of Eurasia and Beringia (north-eastern Siberia and Alaska). Based on the cytochrome oxidase I (mtDNA) sequences, the A. dentata -like cestodes from Buryatia (hosts Myodes rufocanus and Microtus fortis ) group strongly, and are therefore conspecific, with the Holarctic species ( Haukisalmi et al. 2009). However, it is not yet known if this Holarctic species is conspecific with either of the two related species described in North America, i.e. Anoplocephaloides infrequens (Douthitt, 1915) and A. troeschi (Rausch, 1946) from Geomys bursarius (Shaw) (Geomyidae) and Microtus pennsylvanicus (Ord) , respectively.

In the Palaearctic, A. dentata -like cestodes are characteristically parasites of voles of the genera Microtus and Chionomys . However, in addition to Microtus gregalis (Pallas) , M. maximowiczii and M. oeconomus , Machul’skii (1958) and Zhaltsanova (1992) reported P. brevis or P. dentata from Myodes rufocanus , M. rutilus , Apodemus peninsulae and Cricetulus barabensis in Buryatia. In the present study, A. cf. dentata was found from Microtus fortis and Myodes rufocanus . It is probable that all A. dentata -like cestodes in Buryatia represent a single species, with the occurrences in Myodes , Apodemus and Cricetulus being accidental.

Because there are few morphological features useful for the diagnosis of A. dentata - like cestodes, sequence data (COI, 28S rRNA) have proved to be necessary tools in the taxonomy of this species complex ( Haukisalmi et al. 2009).

Anoplocephaloides cf. dentata was significantly more prevalent in Nesteriha (23%) than in the other study sites (0-6%) ( Table 1 ).

Voucher specimen: MSB Endo 152 from Microtus fortis (Nesteriha) .