Pseudoaulolaimus anchilocaudatus Imamura, 1931 (Chromadorida: Aulolaimidae) recorded from Vietnam

Nematology , 2005, Vol. 7(2), 317-318 Short communication Pseudoaulolaimus anchilocaudatus Imamura, 1931 (Chromadorida: Aulolaimidae) recorded from Vietnam Dieter S TURHAN ∗ Pseudoaulolaimus anchilocaudatus Imamura, 1931, the only species in the genus and placed together with the genus Aulolaimus in the family Aulolaimidae, was de- scribed by Imamura (1931) from a rice field in Japan. The species is mainly characterised by an anchor-shaped tail terminus in both sexes, a unique character amongst known nematodes. The type material was destroyed in World War II. More than 50 years after the first description, Pseudoaulolaimus anchilocaudatus was reported from several sites in Germany and The Netherlands by Sturhan and Lorenzen (1983), who gave a detailed redescription of the species based on European material. There is an additional record for Germany, again from wet forest soil, and from Zersen close to the town of Hessisch-Oldendorf (Sturhan, unpubl.). Andrássy (un- publ.) found two females and a juvenile in swampy soil around reeds in Bozsai Bay, Lake Balaton, Hungary, in April 1991 (for measurements see Table 1). There appear to be no additional geographical records of P. anchilocau- datus worldwide. The total of 12 records from various re- gions of Germany, The Netherlands and Hungary indicate that the species is apparently quite widespread in central Europe. Examination of survey material from Vietnam (leg . N.C. Nguyen, Hanoi) revealed a few specimens of P. an- chilocaudatus . Four females, three males and two juve- niles were isolated from two soil samples collected around the roots of wild banana in Cuc Phuong National Park, Ninh Binh province. The nematodes were extracted from soil by a sieving-decanting method, fixed in TAF and transferred to anhydrous glycerine in permanent micro- scopical mounts. Five permanent slides containing the ∗ Present address: Biologische Bundesanstalt für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Institut für Nematologie und Wirbeltierkunde, Toppheideweg 88, 48161 Münster, Germany E-mail: [email protected] Received: 8 November 2004; revised: 16 February 2005 Accepted for publication: 17 February 2005 Keywords: free-living nematode, Germany, Hungary, morphology, variation. P. anchilocaudatus specimens have been deposited in the German Nematode Collection (DNST) at Biologische Bundesanstalt in Münster, Germany, together with other specimens previously collected from Germany. The specimens from Vietnam are smaller than those of the previously described populations, the tail and spicules are much shorter, and the vulva position is between those values given for the Japanese and the German populations (Table 1). All other morphological details are in agreement with the previous descriptions, except for the pair of adcloacal subventral papillae in the males, which are not in a postcloacal, but in a precloacal, position. The stoma occupies 37-40% of the total neck length and the anchor-shaped, or brush-like, tail terminus has four to six terminal processes. The differences in dimensions and in the few morphological characters are currently considered as intraspecific variation. These new data do not provide evidence that geographical races, or even separate species, may eventually be distinguished (see also Sturhan & Lorenzen, 1983). References I MAMURA , S. (1931). Nematodes in the paddy field, with notes on their populations before and after irrigation. Journal of the College of Agriculture, Imperial University of Tokyo 11, 193- 240. S TURHAN , D. & L ORENZEN , S. (1983). Ein Nematode mit ankerförmigem Schwanzende: Wiederfund von Pseudoaulo- laimus anchilocaudatus Imamura, 1931 (Aulolaimidae, Chro- madorida). Nematologica 28 (1982), 420-426. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 317 Also available online - www.brill.nl