PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM issued {^»5I\>S 0?MS h ^he SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM Vol. 102 Washington: 1952 No. 3292 A STUDY OF AN INTERMEDIATE SNAIL HOST (THIARA GRANIFERA) OF THE ORIENTAL LUNG FLUKE (PARA-GONIMUS) By R. Tucker Abbott In recent years there has been increasing interest in the Thiaridae, or "melaniid" snails, not only among students of mollusks but also among parasitologists, for numerous species in this family serve as the intermediate hosts of human trematode diseases. A few years ago Thiara granifera (Lamarck), an important intermediate snail host of the Oriental lung fluke {Paragonimus westermuni Kerbert), was accidentally introduced and has established itself in Lithia Spring, Fla. As an aid to public-health workers and parasitologists, the anatomy, the bionomics, the manner of introduction, and the de-tails of identifying characters of this species are given in this paper. There was also a need for a study of the gross morphological features of and ecological variations in Thiai^a^ before an attempt could be made to solve the problems of speciation and systematic relationships of the genus. This study was begun on Guam Island, the Marianas, and the Philip-pine Islands, where field observations and collecting were carried on from ]\Iay 1945 to January 1946. Further field study was undertaken under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution in January and February of 1948 at Lithia Spring, Hillsborough County, Fla., where bionomic studies were made on several introduced colonies of this species. Most of the anatomical work was done in the division of mollusks. United States National Museum, where these collections are now housed. Paraffin embedding and sectioning of animals was done in the Department of Zoology at George Washington University. 71
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