SOME NEW GENERA AND SPECIES OF NEMATODE 

 WORMS, FILARIOIDEA, FROM ANIMALS DYING IN THE 

 CALCUTTA ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN 



By Asa C. Chandler 



0/ the Rice Institute, Houston, Tex. 



In the course of post-mortem examinations of animals which died 

 in the Zoological Garden, Calcutta, India, a number of filarioid 

 worms were collected. Some of these have already been described 

 (Chandler, 1924). It is significant that every one of seven species 

 studied has proved to-be a new species, the worms belonging to at 

 least five new genera. 



Following the course adopted by most of the recent workers on 

 this group, such as, Seurat, Skrjabin, Travassos, and Yorke and 

 Maplestone, of splitting up the filariae into more numerous genera to 

 conform with the accepted practice in other better known groups of 

 parasitic nematodes, it appears advisable to erect a number of new 

 genera for the species here described. Although a considerable 

 number of the recently proposed genera of filariae contain only a 

 single species, it is very probable that other species will be found in 

 many of them, for the filariid parasites have been far less thoroughly 

 collected and studied than some of the groups which are parasitic in 

 the alimentary canal. 



Among the forms here described is one, Thylaconema sigmura, new 

 genus, new species, which seems to have closer affinities with the 

 Thelaziidae than with any other family of the suborder Spirurata. 

 The worm is, however, a parasite of the abdominal cavity and pro- 

 duces living embryos, which presumably escape from the body of the 

 host in the orthodox manner of the filariae, that is, by being sucked 

 up with the blood by blood-sucking arthropods. The other members 

 of the Thelaziidae are parasitic in the orbital or nasal sacs of mam- 

 mals or birds, in the air sacs of birds, or in the intestines of fishes; 

 with the exception of some of the parasites of aquatic hosts, they 

 produce living embryos which presumably are transmitted by blood- 

 sucking arthropods. In this family there are, furthermore, no distinct 



No. 2777.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 75, Art. 6 



27133—29 



