The Species of Subulura Molin in Primates

Abstract

The genus Subulura was established in 1860 by Molin for a nematode from Scops brasiliannus and at the present day includes some forty species, mostly in birds. Five species have been reported from primates. Three of these are little known and are still only provisionally retained within this genus. These are S. sarasinorum (from Loris), S. otolicni (from Galago) and S. perarmata (from Tarsius). They are discussed below. The remaining species S. distans (from Cercopithecidæ) and S. jacchi (from Cebidæ and Hapalidæ) are of sufficient importance to merit fuller consideration. The first-mentioned is only incompletely known although the second has been recently re-described by Barreto (1919). During an expedition in 1928 to the Lesser Antilles, I was able to collect a large number of specimens of Subulura from the African Monkeys in St. Kitts. These, together with specimens of S. distans and S. jacchi in the collections of the Department of Helminthology of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, provided the material on which this paper is based.