Abnormalities of the attachment clamps of representatives of the family Diplozoidae.

Abstract

A comparative study has been made of the haptoral morphology of four species of diplozoon (Monogenea: Diplozoidae) from the gills of fish exposed to different levels of water pollution in two river systems in eastern Europe. An examination of the haptors of Paradiplozoon homoion (Bychowsky & Nagibina 1959), Paradiplozoon ergensi (Pejcoch 1968) and Paradiplozoon megan (Bychowsky & Nagibina 1959) from chub caught in the River Morava, Czech Republic and of Diplozoon paradoxum (Nordmann 1832) from bream recovered from the River Volga, Russia has revealed abnormalities to the attachment clamps. Two abnormal conditions were found: structural alterations to the attachment clamps and changes in the number of attachment clamps; these occurred both singly and in combination. A higher frequency of abnormal attachment clamps was found in diplozoons from fish caught in the more polluted localities of both rivers. The abnormalities have been recorded and their morphology compared in the light of conditions of environmental stress.