An Alphabetical Index to the Generic Names of Hosts of Acanthocephala of the World Included in Anton Meyer's Monograph

Abstract

Anton Meyer's monograph of the Acanthocephala in Bronn's Tierreichs (1932-1933) is the only publication which contains a comprehensive treatment of the acanthocephalan fauna of the world. It is therefore an indispensable source of information on the hosts and the geographical distribution of the individual species of this group of parasitic worms. At the conclusion of the description of each species Meyer has usually cited the names of all hosts recorded by earier writers and in many instances he has inserted new host records based upon his own studies. In some few instances, family or common group names are cited in the taxonomic text instead of generic or specific names. Summarizing the information on hosts given in the taxonomic section and often supplementing with names of hosts not included in the text, Meyer has compiled a section (pages 340 to 379) in which the families and genera of hosts are arranged phylogenetically for each class or other large unit of the hosts. For each genus of hosts all of the species known to harbor Acanthocephala are listed and for each a presumably complete list of the species of its Acanthocephala is given. This section is of inestimable value to the students of Acanthocephala as well as to all those who are interested in the biology of any given group of animals which these worms parasitiZe. For some unknown reason, not all of the names included in the taxonomic treatment of the individual species of the parasites are included in this collated list of hosts and likewise many generic and specific names of hosts cited in this section are not found in the body of the text. This discrepancy is in part explained by the fact that the section which lists the hosts taxonomically was prepared later than the main body of the specific descriptions. In the earlier part, Meyer often cited the names of hosts as they appeared in the literature. Later, when he prepared the analytical list of hosts, he corrected many of the names that had been used earlier, added other records which had come to his attention and incorporated the unpublished results of his own studies. Although the monograph is provided with three separate indices, no one of these includes the names of hosts. To the general student, who is not thoroughly familiar with the taxonomic and phylogenetic arrangements for all groups of the animal kingdom, it often becomes a time-consuming procedure to locate the name of a given host in the host summary. Accurate scanning of a list several pages in length to detect a given generic name for a host is rendered difficult by the fact that the same type is used for host nanmes as for the list of acanthocephalan species slightly indented beneath it. The writer has spent so much time thumbing through his own copy of the 417