On Opisthorchis caninus (Lewis and Cunningham, 1872) Barker, 1911 (Syn. Paropisthorchis caninus Stephens, 1912) the Common Liver Fluke of Indian Domestic Carnivores

Abstract

The large number of species of the genus Opisthorchis Blanchard, 1895 that have been reported from different regions of the world as parasites of dog, cat, man and lower groups of fish-eating vertebrates, have generally been identified on such adult morphological characters as the size or shape of the gonads, the position and shape of the excretory bladder and the character of the vitellaria, whether in acini or in linear distribution. The validity of the allied genera, Amphimerus Barker, 1911; Paropisthorchis Stephens, 1912 and Clonorchis Looss, 1907, proposed for some of these opisthorchids, had been questioned, among others, by Tubangui (1921), Morgan (1927), Baylis (1929), Faust (1930, 1949), Bhalerao (1935), Erhardt (1935), Wallace and Penner (1939), Price (1940), Dawes (1940), Bisseru (1957) and Watson (1960).