Bursotrema tetracotyloides Szidat, 1960

Aguiar, Aline, Morais, Drausio Honorio, Firmino Silva, Lidiane A., Anjos, Luciano Alves Dos, Foster, Ottilie Carolina & Silva, Reinaldo José Da, 2021, Biodiversity of anuran endoparasites from a transitional area between the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes in Brazil: new records and remarks, Zootaxa 4948 (1), pp. 1-41 : 17-18

Bursotrema tetracotyloides Szidat, 1960

Hosts (prevalence; range): P. centralis (10/35; 1–46) and P. cuvieri (2/32; 3–88).

Site of infection: kidneys.

Stage: metacercaria unencysted.

Type host and type locality: L. latrans (= Leptodactylus ocellatus ), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Comments: Bursotrema tetracotyloides is currently the single species of the genus. This parasite attacks the kidneys of anurans as metacercaria unencysted causing lesion in tissues ( Szidat 1960). The adult parasites are found in the intestines of mammals which have to feed on the third intermediate host, generally, a bird or reptile with metacercariae encysted; frogs act as a second intermediate host which are reached by a cercaria from a snail ( Szidat 1960; Hamann & González 2009). We found the following features in our metacercariae which correspond to B. tetracotyloides : body size very small (around 450µm) characterized by a saccular forebody with oblique aperture in anterior end; in this way, the body constitutes a pouch holding the suckers and the holdfast organ which is large in the center of the body (see Szidat 1960; Hamann & González 2009). The present study reports the first record for Brazil and P. centralis and P. cuvieri represent new hosts for B. tetracotyloides .