Probolocoryphe uca Sarkisian

(18. Pruc; Figs. 1, 75–78)

Diagnosis: Parthenitae. Colony comprised of inactive sporocysts, densely concentrated in snail gonad region, with dispersion into digestive gland and basal visceral mass. Sporocysts translucent golden to orangish; ~ 250– 600 µm long, spheroidal to oblong (length:width up to ~2:1).

Cercaria. Body translucent colorless; non-oculate; with oral sucker and no ventral sucker; with oral stylet, ~ 25 µm long, with distinctive dorsal flange; with a small bi-lobed excretory bladder at posterior-most edge of cercaria body; body ~ 175 µm long, ~equal in length to tail; tail simple.

Cercaria behavior: Fresh, emerged cercariae remain in water column, swim ~continuously, lashing tail back and forth.

Similar species: Pruc is most readily distinguished from Smmi [19] by the difference in stylet morphology and larger body size.

Remarks: The sporocysts and cercariae have not been formally described, but Garcia-Vedrenne et al. (submitted) provide measurements of sporocyst size for three colonies. Sarkisian (1957) described the metacercariae from fiddler crabs (Uca crenulata) infected with microphallid cercariae shed from C. californica.

This species likely corresponds to the “Xiphidiocercaria” of Maxon and Pequegnat (1949), the “large xiphidiocercaria” of Martin (1955), and to “Microphallid 1” of Martin (1972).

Mature, ripe colonies comprise ~41% the soft-tissue weight of an infected snail (summer-time estimate derived from information in [Hechinger et al. 2009]).

Nadakal (1960b) presents information on the pigments of the sporocysts and cercariae of this species.