Volume V 
JUNE, 1912 
No. 2 
AGRIPPINA BONA NOV. GEN. ET NOV. SP. REPRESENTING 
A NEW FAMILY OF GREGARINES. 
By C. STRICKLAND, M.A., B.C. 
Ansiistant to the Quick Professor of Biology in the University of Cambridge. 
{From the Quick Laboratory, Cambridge.) 
' * (With Plate IV and 33 Text-figures.) 
The parasite forming the subject of the present paper was discovered 
inhabiting the alimentary tract of larvae of the common rat-flea of 
this country, Geratophyllus fasciatus Bose, (see PI. IV). 
The terminology employed in describing this species is that of 
Minchin^, according to whom it belongs to the group of cephaline 
eugregarines, of which it constitutes a new family and genus. The 
nuclear changes in the parasite have been closely studied. These 
changes are very remarkable and difficult to explain on either morpho¬ 
logical or physiological grounds, and are altogether different to the 
nuclear changes described by Wenyon (1911) in an allied gregarine 
Lankesteria culicis. 
Nearly every flea larva was found to be infected with the pai'asite, 
whereas many imagines were examined with negative result. The 
larval excreta contained the parasite leading a free existence : a dish 
in which several larvae had been placed for some hours revealed many 
of the parasites just visible to the naked eye, while under the low power 
of a dissecting microscope they appeared as little pearl-like bodies in 
the midst of the patches of excreta. The parasite appears to exercise 
no injurious effect upon its host, for all the fleas in the box in which 
it was found seemed perfectly healthy. 
1 Sporozoa in Lankester’s Treatise on Zoology, 1903. 
Parasitology v 
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