Falcaustra mascula ( Rudolphi, 1819 ) Freitas & Lent, 1941

Aguiar, Aline, Morais, Drausio Honorio, Firmino Silva, Lidiane A., Anjos, Luciano Alves Dos, Foster, Ottilie Carolina & Silva, Reinaldo José Da, 2021, Biodiversity of anuran endoparasites from a transitional area between the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes in Brazil: new records and remarks, Zootaxa 4948 (1), pp. 1-41 : 12

Falcaustra mascula ( Rudolphi, 1819) Freitas & Lent, 1941

Hosts (prevalence; range): R. diptycha (2/21; 1–8), L. chaquensis (3/143; 1–15), L. latrans (2/20; 1) and L. podicipinus (1/225; 1).

Site of infection: small and large intestines.

Stage: adult.

Type host and type locality: Palusophis bifossatus (Raddi) (= Drymobius bifossatus ) ( Colubridae ) and H. nasus (= E. nasus ), Brazil.

Comments: there are 104 known species of Falcaustra from different regions of the world, being 13 from Neotropical Realm ( Bursey et al. 2018). Kathlanids present spherical isthmus immediately anterior to the esophageal bulb, posterior portion of the esophagus in hourglass-shaped ( Lane 1915; Chabaud 1978; Bursey et al. 2018); and Falcaustra spp. can be differentiated by male characteristics such as number and arrangement of caudal papillae, length of spicules, and presence or absence of a pseudosucker ( Bursey et al. 2018). Species of Falcaustra have been reported mainly in turtles, amphibians, fishes, and even one species of bird (Baker 1986; González et al. 2013). In our study, we verified the main diagnostic characters in males’ tail of Falcaustra mascula , such as a pseudosucker, lack of unpaired papillae anterior to anus, six pairs of postcloacal papillae, and one pair of adcloacal papillae ( Freitas & Lent 1941; González et al. 2013). Several anurans from South America were recorded as host of F. mascula (Campi„o et al. 2014; Toledo et al. 2015; Silva et al. 2019). Leptodactylus podicipinus is here reported as a new host of F. mascula and L. chaquensis is reported for the second time, after Graça et al. (2017).