Morphological and molecular characterisation of two free-living bacterivorous nematodes belonging to Rhabditida from South Africa

Abstract A new population of Pseudacrobeles ( ) macrocystis and Poikilolaimus oxycercus is described from South Africa. was collected soil covered by a natural grass in Africa, which morphologically similar to the original description. The African P. characterised having small size (807–818 µm males 703–779 males), female tail cupola-shaped (24–35 µm), spicule length (27–35 µm). , grass, (611–786 lateral field with three incisures, lip region lips bearing seta-like processes blunt conoid labial probolae, primary secondary axils smooth, nerve ring excretory pore at posterior part pharyngeal corpus, spermatheca well developed, postvulval uterine sac poorly conoid-elongate, male thin acute mucro spicules (31–36 Measurements line illustrations species are given. In addition, LM, SEM photographs phylogenetic position macrocyctis provided. 18S 28S rDNA analyses show that closely related other genus processes. This first report