Members of phylum Acanthocephala are parasites of vertebrates and arthropods and are distributed worldwide. The phylum has traditionally been divided into three classes, Archiacanthocephala, Palaeacanthocephala, and Eoacanthocephala; a fourth class, Polyacanthocephala, has been recently proposed. However, erection of this new class, based on morphological characters, has been controversial. We ...

Phylogenetic analyses based on 79 ribosomal proteins of 38 metazoans, partly derived from 6 new expressed sequence tag projects for Ectoprocta, Entoprocta, Sipuncula, Annelida, and Acanthocephala, indicate the monophyly of Bryozoa comprising Ectoprocta and Entoprocta, 2 taxa that have been separated for more than a century based on seemingly profound morphological differences. Our results also ...

The acanthocephalan fauna of Iran is reported for the first time since the report of Pomphorhynchus perforator (von Linstow, 1908) Meyer, 1932 in 1964. The knowledge of the acanthocephalan biodiversity of Iran, with parasite-host and host-parasite checklists, is presented. The species of Acanthocephala are presented in alphabetical order, followed by the species of hosts, localities and referen...

Information on species of parasitic helminths native to Poland is provided by the Pasozytnicze helminty Polski. Gatunki. Zywiciele. Białe Plamy. Until the middle of 2007, there were 1205 species of recorded helminths including 126 species of Monogenea, 338 of Trematoda (Digenea), 279 of Cestoda, 427 of Nematoda and 35 of Acanthocephala. They represented 32.9% of the species recorded in Europe (...

The monophyletic origin of Spiralia within the metazoan tree of life is supported by many large-scale phylogenomic data. While there is now substantial molecular evidence for Lophotrochozoa being a monophyletic taxon within Spiralia, the phylogenetic affiliations of many other spiralian phyla remain unclear. Here we focus on the question of a monophyletic taxon Gnathifera, which was originally ...

Commonly known as spiny-headed worms, acanthocephalans have a characteristic eversible proboscis, which bears rows of recurved spines used for attachment to the intestine of their host. Acanthocephalans are endoparasitic and an extremely successful group found in almost all marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems, infecting a huge range of definitive (usually vertebrate) and intermediate (us...