[Cnidaria] FW: Cassiopea parasite

[Browne, Joanna]

Dear everyone,
 
I'm a PhD student studying associations between jellyfish and other
organisms.  I recently collected some Cassiopea jellies from Lizard
Island and found they are parasitised by something similar to a tapeworm
metacestode.  However, I sent some examples to a tapeworm expert who
found they have nuclei in their "calcareous corpuscles" which indicate
they are not cestodes. He has shown them to a digenean expert who has
ascertained that they are not digeneans. 
 
I have attached photos of the parasite (they are ~2mm in length) , (I
also have photos of small "eggs" (~0.15mm) scattered through the
mesoglea of the jellies  for those interested) , and would appreciate
any ideas of what they could be.

Thank you for your help,
 
Jo
 
Jo Browne
PhD Candidate 
(Griffith School of Environment
and Australian Rivers Institute - Coast & Estuaries)
Melbourne Museum
Marine Invertebrates
GPO Box 666
Melbourne 
VIC 3001
ph  +61 3 8341 7453
fax +61 3 8341 7456
email: jbrowne at museum.vic.gov.au
 

museumvictoria.com.au
This e-mail is solely for the named addressee and may be confidential.You should only read, disclose, transmit, copy, distribute, act in relianceon or commercialise the contents if you are authorised to do so. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, please notify postmaster at museum.vic.gov.au by e-mail immediately, or notify the sender and then destroy any copy of this message. Views expressed in this e-mailare those of the individual sender, except where specifically stated to be those of an officer of Museum Victoria. Museum Victoria does not represent,warrant or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that it is free from errors, virus or interference.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 2991460 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/cnidaria/attachments/20080613/02ef5801/attachment-0001.bin