266 Memoirs of the Indian Museum. [Vol. VII, 



Superfamily ASCAROIDEA, Railliet and Henry, 1915. 



Family ASCARIDAE, Cobbold, 1864. 



Subfamily ASCARINAE, Travassos, 1913. (Askarinae Raill. and Henry, 1912.) 



Genus Ascaris, L., 1758. 



Ascaris lumbricoides, L., 1758. 



The collection contains material which we refer to this species from an interest- 

 ing range of hosts : — 



Man (European boy, Calcutta). 



Orang Utan * (Simia satyrus). 



Large Indian squirrel (Sciurus indicus). 1 



Irrawaddy squirrel (Sciurus pygerythrus). 2 



" Squirrel." 



This species is, of course, known to be a parasite of the larger apes, as well as of 

 man. It has long been a matter of opinion whether the form, often called A. suum or 

 A. suilla, occurring in pigs, both domesticated and wild, is or is not a distinct species 

 from A. lumbricoides. The discovery of what appear to be full-sized specimens of 

 the human worm in squirrels is of great interest, especially when the relatively 

 small size of these animals is taken into account. We have carefully examined and 

 compared specimens from man, from an Indian wild pig, and from the above-men- 

 tioned squirrels, paying particular attention to the characters of the lips, of the male 

 tail, and of the eggs, and our view is that all belong to the same species. The 

 number and arrangement of the caudal papillae of the male have been well figured 

 by Schneider (1866, p. 37). Quit( characteristic is the presence of two pairs of large 

 double papillae behind the cloaca, and three small simple papillae, arranged in a 

 triangle, on either side posteriorly. There is also constantly a pair of double 

 papillae at some little distance from the cloaca, in the preanal series, though the 

 corresponding papillae of the two rows are usually very asymmetrical in position. 

 A curious, large, median, papilla-like structure, or cushion, just in front of the cloaca, 

 and the short, broad, dorso-ventrally flattened, non-alate spicules, somewhat 

 enlarged in the distal half, are also characters common to all the material. 



As regards the lips, little need be said except that no accurate account of the 

 cephalic papillae appears to exist. The dorsal lip carries two large, lozenge-shaped 

 papillae, with double terminations, near its lateral margins, while each ventro-lateral 

 lip has (a) towards the ventral side a large, double papilla, and (b) towards the 

 opposite side two small, separate, simple papillae. In the presence of these papillae, 

 and in all other respects, the lips of individuals from man, pig and squirrel seem to 

 us to agree. 



The supposed differences between A. lumbricoides and " A. suilla " are based chiefly on size, the 

 worms found in the pig being usually of slenderer build than those from man. E. Blanchard (1849) 



1 Now known as Ratufa indica. See Robinson and Kloss, Rec. Ind. Mus. XV, p. 186 (1918). 



2 Now known as Tomeutes pygerythrus ; loc. cit., p. 226. 



