4._N()TE8 ON SOUTH AFHTCAN PAKAsri'Ks. 



By L. H. Goir.Ff, Pn.I). 



The present state of kiiowletlge of the sjjieoies of parasites occuninfj 

 in South Africa is still \eiy inipeifect, scarcely any work having been 

 done in this direction. Many of tlie commoner species have not even 

 been recorded as yet from this subcontinent ; for example, 1 find, on 

 referring to Brauu, ParasiU's of Man, 1908, German edition, pp. 177 

 and 17H, that the known distribution of Fa^ciola (better known as Dit<- 

 fomum) hepntica is — Europe, North Africa, North and South America, 

 Australia, Japan, China and Tonkin. It has evidently not been recoi-ded 

 zoologically from South Africa as yet. Under these circumstances I 

 have little hesitation in presenting the following list of parasites ob- 

 served bv myself, together with a few notes on some of the species ■ — 



Cestodes. 



C aryophyllaens f<]j. — Conniion in Cyprinoid fishes near Pretoria. 



Dnthierxia fimhriata (^J)ies.). -Very common in Varanus niloticus 

 (Linne). I have not yet examined a leguan fiee from this parasite. 



Dibothrwcpphaliis hifus (Linne). — A specimen obtained in Pretoria 

 from a human subject is in my possession ; however, as I have no clue 

 to the history of the specimen, I must suppose that it was imported 

 with the host. One of the tigers in the Pretoi-ia Zoo is also infested 

 with a I)i/>othriocephn/t(.t<, which may belong to the same species, as it 

 is known that D. latus also occurs in cats antl dogs. 



Mfisoceitfoides Hnenttis (Goeze). — A large number of specimens of 

 a worm, which I provisionally class as M. lineafnei, were obtained from 

 the small intestine of a lynx, Lynchiis nidncus (Fitzing), which died in 

 the Pretoria Zoo. J/. Imeafus is a well-known parasite of the domestic 

 cat. 



Aniipfooepliahi vuxjua (Abilgaard), better known as A. p/icafa 

 (Zeder), >'ar. ^"'d.icuJata, Railliet. -Occurrences in the horse, the donkey 

 and the zebra are known to me. This species is apparently not so rare 

 in South Africa as elsewhere. The specimens taken from the zebra per- 

 mit the straightening up of the synonomy as far as Taenia zehrae, Sancer, 

 is concerned. Rudolphi in Entozoorum synopsis cites Taenia zehrae 

 as species dubia, p. 171, No. 109, stating "habitat in Equo Zebra, 

 Sander, T. plicatae aliinis.'' There is but little doubt that the speci- 

 mens from the zebra at my disposal are Anopfocephala magna ( = 7'. 

 pHcata) : T. zebrae or Anoplocephala zehrae thus becomes a synonym 

 of AnopI ocephnl a magna. There now remains a further difficulty : in 

 1891 Collin diagnosed a tapeworm from the zebra (collected in East 

 Africa) as Taenia zebrae, Rud. ; the worm was, however, much more 

 closely related to Taenia perfoliata, Goeze, owning the same projections 

 behind the scolex as A. perfoliata does, and approximately the .same 



