The development of the swimbladder nematode Anguillicola crassus Kuwahara, Niimi et Itagaki, 1974 in the definitive host (eels) was studied under experimental conditions. Small eels, Anguilla anguilla (L.) with body length 8-16 cm were infected by feeding them intermediate host copepods (Cyclops strenuus Fischer) harbouring third-stage larvae of this parasite. These experiments showed that, at 20-22° C, the development from the third-to the fourth-stage larvae lasted approximately three weeks, but some retarding third-stage larvae occurred in the wall of the host’s swimbladder or hyperparasitizing in the cuticle of adult nematodes as late as three months p.i. Young adults developed in the lumen of the swimbladder within approximately one month and noneinbryonated eggs first appeared in females 6-7 weeks p.i. The prepatent period was about three months and the patent period could be estimated to last no more than a month. Females degenerated soon after oviposition. The experiments confirmed that the size of mature A. crassus depends on the body size of its definitive host (eel).
Three species of planktonie crustaceans, Cyclops strenuus and Macrocyclops alhidus (Copcpoda) and Notodromas monacha (Ostracoda), were experimentally infected with the eggs and second-stage larvae of the swimbladder nematode Anguillicola crassus originating from eels from Neusiedler Lake in Austria. At 20-22°C, third-stage larvae of the parasite developed in all these invertebrate hosts within 16-20 days p.i. Ostracods harbouring the nematode third-stage larvae (33 days p.i.) were fed to small eels (Anguilla anguilla), while infected copepods (20 days p.i.) to seven other fish species. By these experiments, the larvae from ostracods proved to be infective for the definitive host and the ostracod was thus confirmed as a true intermediate host of Anguillicola crassus. Notodromas monacha represents a new experimental intermediate host of A. crassus and the second known invertebrate other than a copepod in which the larval development of this nematode up to the infective stage takes place. Five species of fish, cyprinids Tinca tinea, Alhumus alburnus, Gobio gobio and Albumoides bipunctatus (the latter representing a new host record), and guppy, Poecilia reticulata, were found to serve as experimental paratenic hosts for A. crassus, in which the live nematode infective larvae were recorded 49 days p.i.
The development of the nematode Anguillicola crassus, a swimbladder parasite of eels, was experimentally studied in copepod intermediate hosts Cyclops strenuus and Acanthocyclops vernalis. The copepods, kept at a laboratory temperature of 20-22 °C, were infected with nematode second-stage larvae; the second moult of larvae (the only one in the intermediate host) was observed to start 10 days p,i„ but third-stage larvae liberated from their cuticular sheath were first observed 20 days p.i. These proved to be infective for experimental eels. Free second-stage larvae as well as larvae from copepods were described. The morphology of A. crassus larvae and the mode of their development in the intermediate host were compared with those of other dracunculoid nematodes. From this point of view, Anguillicola members appear to represent an ancient group of dracunculoid nematodes.