On the Occurrence of Ostertagia pinnata Daubney, 1933, in Association with Ostertagia trifurcata Ransom, 1907 in India and Great Britain

Abstract

Ostertagia trifurcata was first described by Ransom (1907) from sheep and goats in United States. It has since been reported from various other countries and appears to have a world wide distribution. This species is recorded from India for the first time, in the present paper.In Great Britain, O. trifurcata was first recorded by Boulenger (1914) but his record seems to have been overlooked by Travassos (1987). It has also been reported from sheep and goats in different parts of Great Britain by Morgan (1925), Jones (1926) and Oldham and Morgan (1984). All these workers report the occurrence of this species in association with Ostertagia circumcincta. Elsewhere, the association of O. circumcincta and O. trifurcata has been reported by Tetley (1984) from New Zealand, Ransom (1911) from United States, Gebauer (1982) from Germany and Saquenet (1946) from Algeria. In my collection from India (Kangra District), O. trifurcata,is present in small numbers together with O. circumcincta which is always the predominant species. In a collection of helminths from Cyprus in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine a few O. trifurcata were found in association with a large number of O. circumcincta.