ESTONIAN ACADEMY
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eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
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Estonian Journal of Ecology
Records of horsehair worms (Nematomorpha) in Estonia, with description of three new species from the genus Gordius L.; pp. 39–51
PDF | doi: 10.3176/eco.2010.1.03

Authors
Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa, Marko Prous
Abstract
Except for one record, no species of horsehair worms (Nematomorpha) have been recorded from Estonia. We report here the finding of 35 specimens, 14 of them determined as Gordionus violaceus (Baird, 1853), a widespread European species. Three new species are described. These are Gordius balticus sp. nov. with an angled postcloacal crescent and fine stout bristles on the cuticular surface, Gordius spiridonovi sp. nov. with a row of bristles extending from the posterior tips of the postcloacal crescent onto the tail lobes, and Gordius terminosetosus sp. nov. with longer bristles on the posterior tips of the tail lobes. Additionally, some specimens of the genus Gordius L. with a particular fine structure of the superficially smooth cuticle are reported, but these could not be determined to species level.
References

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Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. 2000. Rasterelektronenmikroskopische Untersuchungen an Gordionus violaceus und Gordius elongiporus n. sp. (Nematomorpha) aus Niederösterreich. Linzer Biol. Beitr., 32, 455–461.

Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. 2001. Variation of cuticular characters in the Nematomorpha: studies on Gordionus violaceus (Baird, 1853) and G. wolterstorffii (Camerano, 1888) from Britain and Ireland. Syst. Parasitol., 49, 41–57.
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Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. & Kristensen, P. 2006. Horsehair worms (Nematomorpha) from the Baltic Island Bornholm (Denmark), with notes on the biology of Gordius albopunctatus. J. Nat. Hist., 40, 495–502.
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Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. & Zaenker, S. 2006. Saitenwürmer (Nematomorpha) aus hessischen Höhlen, Bergwerksstollen und Quellen, mit der Beschreibung einer Abnormalität bei einem Individuum. Hessische Faunistische Briefe, 24, 65–77.

Spiridonov, S. E. 1984. Two new Nematomorpha species of the family Gordiidae. Proc. Zool. Inst. USSR Acad. Sci., 126, 97–101 (in Russian).

Thomas, F., Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., Martin, G., Manu, C., Durand, P. & Renaud, F. 2002. Do hair­worms (Nematomorpha) manipulate the water-seeking behaviour of their terrestrial hosts? J. Evol. Biol., 15, 356–361.
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Villalobos, L. C. de, Ribera, I. & Downie, I. S. 1999. Hairworms found in Scottish agricultural land, with descriptions of two new species of Gordionus Müller (Nematomorpha: Gordiidae). J. Nat. Hist., 33, 1767–1780.
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