Schistosomiasis is a Neglected Tropical Disease caused by trematode species of the genus Schistosoma. Both, autochthonous and imported cases of urogenital schistosomiasis have been described in Europe. The present study focuses on eggs, considered pure S. haematobium by genetic characterisation (intergenic ITS region of the rDNA and cox1 mtDNA). A phenotypic characterisation of S. haematobium eggs was made by morphometric comparison with experimental populations of S. bovis and S. mansoni, to help in the diagnosis of S. haematobium populations infecting sub-Saharan migrants in Spain. Analyses were made by Computer Image Analysis System (CIAS) applied on the basis of new standardised measurements and geometric morphometric tools. The principal component analysis (PCA), including seventeen non-redundant measurements, showed three phenotypic patterns in eggs of S. haematobium, S. bovis and S. mansoni. PCA showed that the S. bovis population presented a large egg size range with a pronouncedly larger maximum size. Similarly, S. bovis shows bigger spine values than S. haematobium. Mahalanobis distances between each pair of groups were calculated for each discriminant analysis performed. In general, S. mansoni and S. bovis present larger distances between them than with S. haematobium, i.e. they present the greatest differences. Regarding the spine, S. haematobium and S. mansoni are the most distant species. Results show the usefulness of this methodology for the phenotypic differentiation between eggs from these Schistosoma species, capable of discerning morphologically close eggs, as is the case of the haematobium group. Schistosoma egg phenotyping approaches may be applied to assess not only hybrid forms but also potential influences of a variety of other factors.

血吸虫病是由血吸虫属吸虫引起的一种被忽视的热带疾病。欧洲已经描述了本土和输入的泌尿生殖系统血吸虫病病例。本研究的重点是鸡蛋，通过遗传特征（rDNA 和cox 1 mtDNA的基因间 ITS 区域）被认为是纯S. haematobium。S. haematobium卵的表型特征是通过与S. bovis和S. mansoni 的实验种群进行形态计量学比较进行的，以帮助S. haematobium的诊断。感染西班牙撒哈拉以南移民的人群。分析是通过计算机图像分析系统 (CIAS) 在新的标准化测量和几何形态测量工具的基础上应用的。主成分分析 (PCA) 包括 17 个非冗余测量，显示了血吸虫、牛链球菌和曼氏链球菌卵的三种表型模式。PCA 表明，牛链球菌种群呈现出较大的蛋大小范围，最大尺寸明显更大。同样，S. bovis显示出比S. haematobium更大的脊柱值。为执行的每个判别分析计算每对组之间的马氏距离。一般来说，S. mansoni和S. bovis与S. haematobium 相比，它们之间的距离更大，即它们之间的差异最大。关于脊柱，S. haematobium和S. mansoni是最远的物种。结果表明，这种方法对来自这些血吸虫物种的卵之间的表型区分很有用，能够辨别形态学上接近的卵，就像血吸虫组的情况一样。血吸虫卵表型方法不仅可用于评估杂交形式，还可用于评估各种其他因素的潜在影响。