MICIPSELLA INDICA, N. SP.

                                             BY

                   M. ANANT NARAYAN RAO, G.M.V.C.

     Lecturer in Parasitology, Madras Veterinary College, Madras

                (Received for publication on the 16th June 1938)

                         (With Plate XVIII and one text-figure)

SIX years ago, a piece of liver from a hare, Lepus nigricollis, containing a
number of filariid worms was received from Tiruvannamalai, North Arcoe
district. The worms were in a clot of blood in the portal vein. Only somt
female worms were available for study then and because they resembled, to
a very great extent, the females of Micipsella numidica [Seurat, 1917], they
were recorded as such in the Annual Report of the Civil Veterinary Depart-
ment, Madras, 1932-33. It has now been possible to obtain some male worms
and a detailed study of these has shown some important differences between
these and the ones described by Seurat.

Seurat [1917] described Filaria numidica which he obtained from the
peritoneal cavity of Lepus species. In 1921, he created a new genus Micipsella
to receive those worms and renamed them Micipsella numidica. Kalantarian
[1924] described similar worms from rodents in Armenia and named them
Cercofilaria numidica which, according to Yorke and Maplestone [1926], are
synonymous with M. numidica. From the literature available, it would
appear that so far only one species has been described.

A description of the male and female worms, obtained from the portal
vein of the hare, is given below.

Females.—The length varies from 120 to 140 mm. The body is thread-
like and gradually tapers at both ends, the head end being more blunt than
the tail end. The cuticle is fairly thick and it is ornamented with two narrow
rows of inconspicuous bosses running along the lateral lines from near the
anterior end to almost the end of the worm. The mouth is a simple pore
surrounded by a circlet of very small papillary projections. A little behind
the oral opening are four small submedium papillae. The oesophagus is uni-
form in its width and opens into a fairly wide intestine. The genital opening
is a little in front of the level of the posterior end of the oesophagus. Opis-
thodelphes. Uterus contains unsheathed larvae. Viviparous. The tail
is slightly curved and its end is blunt.

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