animal biosystematic
Mina Azhari; Elham Ahmadi
Abstract
Freshwater snails are intermediate hosts of a large and important group of parasitic worms in medicine and veterinary medicine. In Iran, millions of rials of losses are caused by human Fascioliasis, which can be its intermediate hosts, the right-rounded snail Lymnaea palustris and the left-rounded snail ...
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Freshwater snails are intermediate hosts of a large and important group of parasitic worms in medicine and veterinary medicine. In Iran, millions of rials of losses are caused by human Fascioliasis, which can be its intermediate hosts, the right-rounded snail Lymnaea palustris and the left-rounded snail Physa acuta. To investigate the morphology of freshwater snails L. palustris and P. acuta from two families Lymnaeidae and Physidae, samples were collected during spring and summer from the west and south of Tehran province in 2021 and 2022. A total of 987 samples were collected and after being killed in boiling water, the samples were kept in 70% alcohol. In the laboratory, the radula of the samples were extracted and stained using Malery II and the dental formula, radula teeth and shell morphology were examined. In the species L. palustris, the central tooth is narrow and covered with a small cusp, the marginal teeth are poorly developed and have an irregular structure but in the species P. acuta, the central tooth has three main cusps and large marginal teeth. In terms of the difference in the shell of these two species, we can mention the length and the type of twisting, which in the adult species of L. palustris, their standard size is around 21 mm, but in the adult species of P. acuta, its standard size is It is about 15 mm. Also, a significant correlation was observed between the environmental factor of temperature and the population changes of the studied species.
