Abstract
The ultrastructural characteristics of the mature spermatozoon of Diplodiscus amphichrus (Digenea, Paramphistomoidea, Diplodiscidae) and their ultrastructural organisation were examined by means of transmission electron microscopy. Live digeneans were collected from the Chinese edible frog Hoplobatrachus rugulosus in Thailand. The male gamete of D. amphichrus is a filiform cell with two axonemes of the 9 + ’1’ trepaxonematan pattern, nucleus, one mitochondrion, parallel cortical microtubules, a well-developed lateral expansion, external ornamentation of the plasma membrane, spine-like bodies, and granules of glycogen. These ultrastructural characteristics have already been described in other paramphistomoids studied so far except for the cladorchiids, which present some differences. Two characteristics of the male gamete of D. amphichrus were found for the first time in a digenean: (i) the appearance of the initial part of the lateral expansion before the axonemes in the anterior extremity and (ii) the separation between the second axoneme and the nucleus in the posterior tip. Our results are compared with the available data in the Digenea and particularly with other paramphistomoids.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Renu Sirimongkonthaworn from Sakon Nakhon Provincial Fisheries Office and Tiwarat Thalernkietleela from Biodiversity Research Group, Inland Fisheries Research and Development Division, Department of Fisheries, both gave us valuable advice in first steps of this study. We are also grateful to the staff of the ‘Centres Científics i Tecnològics’ of the University of Barcelona (CCTiUB) for their assistance in the preparation of samples. PMD benefitted from a Scholarship Programme for Young African Researchers of the Coimbra Group. AR and JM are members of the 2017-SGR-1008 research group.
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Diagne, P.M., Ribas, A., Poonlaphdecha, S. et al. Sperm characteristics in the digenean Diplodiscus amphichrus (Paramphistomoidea, Diplodiscidae), a parasite of the Chinese edible frog Hoplobatrachus rugulosus. Zoomorphology 139, 309–317 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-020-00489-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-020-00489-y