On a RE-EXAMINATION of the TYPES of KREPFT'S 



SPECIES of CESTODA in tub AUSTRALIAN 



MUSEUM, SYDNEY. 



PART I. 



By T. Harvky Johnston, M.A., D.Sc, Hon. Zoologist. 

 (From the Bureau of Microbiology, Sydney.) 



(Plates i-vi.) 



I. — Introduction. 



If we consider what a vast vertebrate fauna — fish, amphibians, 

 reptiles, birds, mammals, — Australia possesses, we must be 

 struck with the extreme paucity of our knowledge of its parasit- 

 ology and especially of its Platyhelminthic Entozoa. It is only 

 the Cestoda which concern us here ; a comparatively small 

 number have been described. If we include only adult forms 

 from the mainland, i.e. if we exclude those described from New 

 Guinea and other East Indian Islands belonging to the Austral- 

 asian zoogeographical section we will notice that there are only 

 about ten tapeworms described (December 1910) more or less 

 completely from our mammals, four of them being named by 

 Krefft and three by Zschokke ; about seventeen from Australian 

 birds, eleven being named by Krefft, two by Linstow and two by- 

 myself ; two from local fish, both described by Haswell ; and 

 two from reptiles, one being studied by me. In addition to these 

 there have been a few identifications and more complete accounts 

 given of parasites found in local hosts hut previously described 

 from extra- Australian hosts, e.g. Gyrocotyle rugosa, Dies., whose 

 anatomy was given by Spencer. In some cases there is merely a 

 reference to the identification of an Entozoon in a host in 

 Australian territory, which has been described elsewhere, e.g. 

 certain tapeworms from the Sunfish. Besides these a number of 

 larval Cestoda have been described or identified from mammals, 

 reptiles, amphibia and frogs by Haswell, Hill, myself and others. 

 It8hould be mentioned that no notice has been taken of the intro- 

 duced fauna, whether wild or domesticated, in the above estimate 

 of our known Australian Cestoda. 



From the foregoing it will be seen that Krefft has described 

 about half of the tapeworms known from the Australian main- 

 land. His accounts and figures are very unsatisfactory and do 

 not allow of the recognition of any of them, as his remarks are 

 1 



