A NOTE ON HELMINTHS OF THE INDIAN ELEPHANT
I—AMPHISTOMATOUS PARASITES
B. S. MALIK, P. RAI and S. S. AHLUWALIA, U. P. College of Veterinary
Science and Animal Husbandry, Mathura
Received on March 8, 1958 and accepted for publication on June 18, 1958
(With 4 Text Figures)
An elephant, belonging to a circus, which had died in August, 1957, was available for
postmortem on the third day of its death, and a collection of helminths from a part of
the intestine yielded 19 specimens of amphistomes belonging to three different species
in addition to a large number of bursate round worms assignable to eight different species.
The amphistomes were found to show different degree of body movements. On account of
the putrefactive changes that had taken place inside the intestine, the smaller sized speci-
mens were dead with bodies considerably extended. These were all immediately fixed in
formalin and later studied from stained permanent preparations and in one case from the
stained sectioned material as well. The three species belong to two different groups, one
with a muscular cirrus sac and the other without a muscular cirrus sac. The former group
is represented by two species of which one has one and the other eleven specimens and the latter
by one species with seven specimens.
LITERATURE REVIEWED
The first record in literature of amphistomes from an Indian elephant is by Cobbold
[1875 and 1882], who recorded Amphistoma collinsi and Amphistoma hawkesii in 1875 and, later
in 1882, Amphistoma papillatus. Stiles and Goldberger [1910], in their study of the anatomy
of the amphistome of man, Watsonius watsoni, created the genera Pseudodiscus, Hawkesius and
Pfenderius with Pseudodiscus collinsi [Cobbold, 1875], Hawkesius hawkessi [Cobbold, 1875] and
Pfenderius papillatus [Cobbold, 1882] as the type species respectively. Fukui [1926] created
a new genus Tegumaea and described its type species Tegumaea heterocaeca from the intestine
of Elephas maximus. Later, Fukui [1929] proposed a new sub-family Pfenderinae for Pfenderius
and Tegumaea which he had distinguished on the absence or presence of papillae on acetabu-
lum, musculature of oesophageal wall and the character of intestinal caeca. Bhalerao [1933],
in his study of the trematode parasites of the Indian elephant (Elephas indica), has recorded
Pseudodiscus collinsi, of which he gives a detailed description, Pseudodiscus hawkesii, Pfenderius
papillatus and Gastrodiscus secundus [Looss, 1907]. In his 'Helminth Parasites of Domesticated
Animals' Bhalerao [1935] has listed Pseudodiscus hawkesii, Pseudodiscus collinsi, Pfenderius papillatus,
Tegumaea heterocaeca, retaining the genera Pfenderius and Tegumaea under Pfenderinae, and
Gastrodiscus secundus as parasites of Indian elephant. The same author [Bhalerao, 1935 a]
in his paper, 'On the Helminth Parasites of the Indian elephants from Andaman and Burma',
has described a new species from the large intestine under the name of Pfenderius birmanicus
and in addition, gives a fuller account of Pfenderius heterocaeca appending additional informa-
tion about Pfenderius papillatus. He, however, drops the genus Tegumaea placing its species
under Pfenderius and accordingly amends Fukui's definition of the sub-family Pfenderinae.
Nasmark [1937], in his elaborate revision of the trematode family Paramphistomidae while
retaining Pfenderinae for the two genera Pfenderius and Tegumaea which have species parasites
on Indian elephant, has created two new sub-families Watsoniinae for the genus Watsonius
and Pseudodiscinae for the genus Pseudodiscus. In the monograph Helminth Parasites
of the Elephant, Westhuysen [1938] has compiled the descriptions and figures available of
all the species of amphistomes of Indian elephant. He has recognised under Paramphistomidae,
the sub-family Cadorchinae [Fischoeder, 1901] with two species under the genus Pseudodiscus,
P. collinisi, P. hawkesii, and Pfenderinae [Fukui 1929], as amended by Bhalerao [1935], with
the genus Pfenderius having the species P. papillatus, and P. birmanicus. Skrajabin [1949], in the
comprehensive volume on Paramphistomata, has differently dealt with the various species
of amphistomes from elephants in his scheme of classification. The genera Pfenderius (with
P. papillatus and P. birmanicus) and Tegumaea (with he retains with Tegumaea heterocaeca) under
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