ABSTRACT

Figure 33.2 The global distribution, by country, of Centrocestus formosanus and its first intermediate snail host, Melanoides tuberculata

The native range for the parasite (within all hosts) is southeast Asia (Scholz and Salgado-Maldonado, 2000). Centrocestus formosanus was originally described from Formosa (Taiwan) by Nishigori (1924) in natural infections of an operculate snail, Melanoides tuberculata. Melanoides tuberculata, the most common first intermediate host used by the parasite (Yanohara, 1987), is considered native to Asia and Africa (Brown, 1980) with type locality from Coramandel (southeast coast of India). Although both M. tuberculata and M. tuberculatus appear in the literature, the proper use of the species name is the feminine form based on the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, 1999; Article 30.1.4.4), so the correct version is M. tuberculata (Cowie, R., pers. comm.).