Eastern Box Turtle Parasites 95 



what surprising. The poisonous fungi in the diet could conceivably 

 act as a periodic vermifuge, but that has not been investigated. 



Parasite life cycles are often complex and may involve a variety 

 of strategies to get the parasite into the definitive host, including one 

 or more intermediate hosts. Successful transmission requires a congruence 

 between parasite life cycle and host behavior or ecology. Aho (1990) 

 discussed the importance of reptile- and amphibian-parasite systems in 

 understanding the ecological and evolutionary relationships which determine 

 parasite species distribution. The parasite presence/absence data accumu- 

 lated in our study suggest that Spironoura affinis has a long history 

 or relationship with Terrapene Carolina and the aquatic emydid turtles 

 from which the box turtle evolved. Nursery ulcers and molluscan 

 intermediate hosts could represent the nematode's adaptation to the 

 host's move from an aquatic to a terretrial habitat. The presence/ 

 absence data also suggest that Terrapene Carolina acquired a number 

 of amphibian parasites in the ecological shift from water to land. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS— This study was supported in part by 

 Science and Engineering Development Award 89SE01 from the North 

 Carolina Board of Science and Technology. We are indebted to J. 

 Ralph Lichtenfels for the loan of specimens from the U.S. National 

 Museum Helminthological Collection. We further thank James W. Petranka 

 for assistance with statistical analyses, John G. Petranka for updating 

 the molluscan nomenclature, and to Joyce McHenry, Jeanne Simmons, 

 and Kathy Haley for assistance in collecting specimens. 



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