Probolocoryphe uca Sarkisian

(18. Pruc; Figs. 1, 75–78)

Diagnosis: Parthenitae. Colony comprised of inactive sporocysts, densely concentrated in snail gonad region, with dispersion into digestive gland and basal visceral mass. Sporocysts translucent golden to orangish; ~ 250– 600 µm long, spheroidal to oblong (length:width up to ~2:1).

Cercaria . Body translucent colorless; non-oculate; with oral sucker and no ventral sucker; with oral stylet, ~ 25 µm long, with distinctive dorsal flange; with a small bi-lobed excretory bladder at posterior-most edge of cercaria body; body ~ 175 µm long, ~equal in length to tail; tail simple.

Cercaria behavior: Fresh, emerged cercariae remain in water column, swim ~continuously, lashing tail back and forth.

Similar species: Pruc is most readily distinguished from Smmi [19] by the difference in stylet morphology and larger body size.

Remarks: The sporocysts and cercariae have not been formally described, but Garcia-Vedrenne et al. (submitted) provide measurements of sporocyst size for three colonies. Sarkisian (1957) described the metacercariae from fiddler crabs (Uca crenulata) infected with microphallid cercariae shed from C. californica .

This species likely corresponds to the “Xiphidiocercaria” of Maxon and Pequegnat (1949), the “large xiphidiocercaria” of Martin (1955), and to “Microphallid 1” of Martin (1972).

Mature, ripe colonies comprise ~41% the soft-tissue weight of an infected snail (summer-time estimate derived from information in [Hechinger et al. 2009]).

Nadakal (1960b) presents information on the pigments of the sporocysts and cercariae of this species.