Abstract
Al-Salman H. A. and James B. L. 1988. Ultrastructure of the tegument in daughter sporocyst and cercarial embryos of Meiogymnophallus minutas (Digenea:Gymnophallidae). International Journal for Parasitology 18: 231–242. Germinal cells in the brood chamber of parent sporocysts develop either into another generation of daughter sporocysts or cercariae. Daughter sporocyst germinal balls are naked but those of cercariae surrounded by an investing syncytium derived from an embryonic somatic cell. The tegument in both daughter and cercarial embryos develops from fused cytoplasmic extensions of superficial cells. However, it is microvillous and external in the daughter sporocyst embryo, and smooth and beneath the investing syncytium in the cercarial embryo. Pinocytosis, micropinocytosis and phagocytosis appear to occur in the germinal cells, in the component cells of the naked germinal balls and in the microvillous tegument in developing daughter sporocysts. The external plasma membrane of germinal cells which develop into cercariae, however, appears to be inactive but later the investing syncytium undergoes micropinocytosis. The spinous tegument replaces the investing syncytium only just prior to release of the cercariae from the daughter sporocysts.
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