10 FILAliU SPEC. 



NOTE V. 



ON FILARIA-SPECIMENS FROM THE 

 RIGHT VENTRICLE OF THE HEART OF FELIS ONCA. 



BY 



Dr. R. HORST. 



Some time ago Mr. J. H. Spitzly kindly forwarded to our 

 Museum a few bottles with parasitic worms , collected by him 

 in Surinam. Among them there was a bottle, containing 

 some Nematodes found in the heart of a young female 

 Jaguar, that was killed by a hunter. In reference to these 

 parasites Mr. Spitzly wrote to me : » on incising the remar- 

 kably thin walls of the right ventricle, I was astonished 

 to find the whole cavity fully packed with long white 

 worms, laying in bundles more or less parallel to each 

 other in the direction of heart's apex to endings of pul- 

 monary arteries. By slitting open the pulmonary arteries 

 I found that some of them extended from the heart along 

 the arteries far into the substance of the lungs." 



These worms bear a great resemblance to Filaria inmi- 

 tis Leidy, observed by several investigators in the right 

 ventricle and the pulmonary arteries of our common dog. 

 Having no individuals of this species at my disposal , the 

 specimens could only be identified from the short descrip- 

 tion, published by Schneider in his » Monographic der 

 Nematoden" pag. 87 ') ; therefore the Jaguar-filaria's af- 

 terwards perhaps may prove to belong to another species. 

 However because Nematodes never have been mentioned 

 from the heart of Felis onca , as far I am aware off, I 

 thought it not without interest to call the attention of 

 helminthologists on this fact. 



1) I much regret that I had no opportunity of consulting Welch's descrip- 

 tion of the thread-worm , in the Monthly Microscopical Journal , Vol. X. 



.Notes from tlie Leyclen Museum, Vol. XI. 



