Pulmonary parasitism by pentastomids was examined in two lizard species inhabiting an area of restinga vegetation (coastal sand dunes) situated in the municipality of Mataraca (6 degrees 29' S and 34 degrees 56' W), on the extreme northern coast of Paraíba State, Brazil. A total of 123 lizards were collected, being 75 specimens of Micrablepharus maximiliani (Gymnophtalmidae) and 48 specimens of...

Raillietiella gigliolii is a Neotropical pentastomid parasite found in Amphisbaena alba. Collections were made in northeastern Brazil in a remnant area of Atlantic Forest (07 masculine 10' S and 35 masculine 05' W) in the municipality of Cruz do Espírito Santo, Paraíba State, and in a Humid Forest area (07 masculine 16' S and 39 masculine 26' W) on the slopes of the Chapada do Araripe Mountains...

Pentastomids are a small group of vermiform animals with unique morphology and parasitic lifestyle. They are generally recognized as being related to the Arthropoda; however, the nature of this relationship is controversial. We have determined the complete sequence of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the pentastomid Armillifer armillatus and complete or nearly complete mtDNA sequences from repr...

Pentastomids (tongue worms) are worm-like arthropods known today from ∼140 species [1]. All but four are parasitic on vertebrates. Their life cycle typically involves larval development in an intermediate host followed by maturation in the respiratory tract of a definitive terrestrial host. Fossil pentastomids are exceedingly rare and are known only from isolated juveniles [2-6]. The identity o...

The oocytes of the cephalobaenid Pentastomid Rail­ lietiella aegypti were studied by electron microscopy. A prominent feature of vitellogenic oocytes are numerous spherical, oval and elongated mitochondria. Some of these are shown with desmosome-like structures. The associa­ tions between mitochondria and the desmosome-like struc­ tures have always been observed to lie freely in the oocytoplasm...

Pentastomida is a taxon of parasitic organisms infecting generally the respiratory system of vertebrates, mainly reptiles. Although this taxon is very important for understanding the phylogeny of the Metazoa, it has received little attention. In Brazil, there are few collections that include species of pentastomids, that is, only the Helminthological Collection of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute (CH...

This article describes a new species of Brazilian Raillietiella Sambon, 1910 from lungs of Tropidurus hispidus (Spix, 1825). Between July and October 2005 eighteen specimens of T. hispidus were actively captured with elastic rubber slings in granite outcrops (lajeiros) (06 degrees 59' S and 39 degrees 31' W) from caatinga formations in the municipality of Farias Brito, State of Ceará, Northeast...

The complete 18S rDNA gene sequence of Macrobiotus group hufelandi (Tardigrada) was obtained and aligned with 18S rDNA and rRNA gene sequences of 24 metazoans (mainly protostomes). Discrete character (maximum-parsimony) and distance (neighbor-joining) methods were used to infer their phylogeny. The evolution of bootstrap proportions with sequence length (pattern of resolved nodes, PRN) was stud...