Taxonomic status of Ascocotyle (Phagicola) rara Arruda, Muniz-Pereira et Pinto, 2002 (Digenea: Heterophyidae).

Holotype and paratype of Ascocotyle (Phagicola) rara Arruda, Muniz-Pereira et Pinto, 2002, a heterophyid trematode recently described on the basis of two worms collected by Lauro Travassos in 1921 in the intestine of Ixobrychus exilis (Gmelin) from Brazil, were studied. The morphology of the worms revealed their conspecificity with Ascocotyle (Phagicola) angeloi Travassos, 1928 found in the same host. Both the taxa have a similar length (between 600 and 900 microm) and shape of the body (long pyriform), the long intestinal caeca reaching to the ovarian level, a long posterior muscular prolongation of the oral sucker and the prepharynx, transverse uterine loops situated between the ventral sucker and testes, and the gonotyl with more than 20 digitiform pockets. Consequently, A. (P.) rara is proposed as a junior synonym of Ascocotyle (Phagicola) angeloi.