Gastrocotyline Parasites of Indian Clupeoids- 
-Unnithan 
217 
i. The long clamp row in mature worms, 
1.7-2. 4 mm long, bears 42-49 nearly 
sessile units, closely set, the posterior edge 
of one touching the anterior edge of the 
next one. 
ii. The larger clamps are at least as wide as 
long and are the widest of any described 
in the present study. 
iii. The dorsal appendix on the spring is a 
stalked stout U -shaped piece with parallel 
arms not divergent as in most of its rela- 
tives. 
iv. The ventral arm of the spring is not truly 
bifurcated and is slender throughout. 
v. The braces are bent posteriorly for mutual 
articulation. 
3. Of the two pairs of persistent anchors, 
the anterior are characteristically shaped, with 
the handle markedly longer than the hook, 
which is barely one-quarter of a circle, and with 
a stepped conical spur at a right angle to the 
handle. The anterior anchors are more slender 
and shorter than in Engraulicola, and the pos- 
terior anchors have hooks which recurve for 
only one-third the length of the blade, and have 
an incipient spur and a stout handle. They are 
just half as long as the anterior pair. 
4. The forceps on the penis head are similar 
to those in Engraulicola , but they may be rela- 
tively stouter and shorter; there is no collar 
projecting from the rim of the atrium mascu- 
linus. 
i. The penis spines are sigmoid and 12 in 
number. 
ii. The 20-39 testes are massive in 4-5 files 
anteriorly. 
iii. A vesicula seminalis is present in front of 
the ovarian zone. 
5. In the paired vaginae the vulvae are 
supramarginal and the lateral vaginae join the 
transverse vitelline ducts near their confluence, 
so that there is no true median vaginal duct. 
i. The vulvae are situated at two-thirds the 
distance from the male genital pore to 
the anterior end of the ovary. The vitel- 
line ducts are usually long and oblique 
and they become confluent into the me- 
dian vitelline duct distinctly anterior to 
the ovarian zone. 
6. The pharynx is exceptionally elongated 
and ovoid, the longest (80 p) in the whole 
group; the mean diagonal of the spherical oral 
pouches is 40% or less that of the pharynx. 
7. Exceptional intercrural bridges occur twice 
or thrice in the forebody, and often in the post- 
testicular zone there is an oblique bridge. This 
is the most obvious generic feature, but it is 
perhaps less important than are the preceding 
criteria taken together. 
i. The ends of the crura are subequal and 
markedly inflated, the longer being on the 
inhibited side, and reaching to opposite 
the sixth or seventh clamp from the pos- 
terior end. 
The specific name is derived from the hoT 
and locality, the South Malabar coast. 
Engrauliphila grex gen. et sp. nov. 
Figs. 12-17 
Specimens of this new gastrocotyline genus 
were found swarming on the gills of Thrissocles 
dussumieri (Val.) examined at the Southern 
Indian Marine Biological Laboratory at Trivan- 
drum on October 5, 1955 and at Ayirumthengu 
on September 8, 1955. Those from Trivandrum 
had a multiple infection including a relative, 
Engrauliscobina triaptella sp. n., while those 
from Ayiramthengu were infected with the 
present species only. Numerous specimens were 
collected from a single fish, a minimum of at 
least 50 being very common. However, many 
fishes of the same host species examined at 
Vizhinjom (another marine biological station, 
8 miles south of Trivandrum) on August 19, 
1954 were not infected by E. grex. There the 
characteristic parasite was Engrauliscobina triap- 
tella. 
This worm is foot-shaped with a spurred 
heel, but the "leg” comprising the anterior half 
is only about half as wide as the stout hind- 
body, which tapers evenly to the terminal lap- 
pet; total length 1.3-1. 8 mm and maximum 
width 0.25-0.3 mm, including the haptoral 
wing or spur of the heel (Fig. 12). 
The subterminal mouth is wide, with an an- 
terior circlet of scattered sticky cells. The spher- 
ical oral pouches are 24-32 p in diameter, with 
thin walls but with long muscle fibres extending 
backward ; the relatively long ovoid pharynx is 
