Travassosia tumida n. sp., First Record of the Occurrence of This Acanthocephalan Genus in North America

Abstract

In 1916, Lauro Travassos described a relatively large acanthocephalan from the nine-banded armadillo of Brazil under the name Hamanniella carinii. In later works Travassos cited the publication in which this species was described as 1916, Congresso-Medico Paulista. The writer has never had the opportunity of examining the original publication and contacts with many large research libraries in this country seem to indicate that this publication was never received by any of the regular repositories of scientific literature in the United States. Consequently, the present writer has had to rely upon the description which Travassos gave in 1917. At the close of the specific description in his 1917 publication, Travassos expressed lack of confidence in the generic assignment of this species because the bodies of his specimens showed shape and conditions unlike those with which he was familiar in Hamanniella microcephala (Rudolphi, 1819), the type of the genus. By drawings, and especially through photographs, he demonstrated that the body of H. carinii has a smooth, practically unwrinkled surface (his figs. 93, 94). In contrast, that of H. microcephala (his fig. 74) is coarsely cross striated and tends to show a distinct ruffling along the dorsal and the ventral surfaces.