Contributions to the Life History of Proteocephalus ambloplitis (Leidy)

Proteocephalus ambloplitis was first described as Taenia ambloplitis by Leidy in 1887. In 1900 Benedict identified as this species some material in the Ward collection. Marshall and Gilbert (1905) mentioned it in connection with a study of the food of fishes from lakes in the vicinity of Madison, Wisconsin. La Rue, in his monograph on the Proteocephalidae (1914), brought much material on this species together and determined the synonomy of the forms described by Riggenbach (1896), Linton (1897), and other workers. He carefully redescribes the parasite and lists four new localities where it is found. This work, because of its completeness, renders further study of the adult unnecessary. Leidy (1887) described what is now known to be a plerocercoid as Taenia micropteri. This was found in the intestine of M. salmoides (= nigricans) from Lake George, N. Y. La Rue (1914) suggested that this larva was probably that of P. ambloplitis. Cooper (1915) while making a systematic study of the fresh-water fishes of the Georgian Bay region, noted some plerocercoid larvae in the small-mouth black bass (M. dolomieu). By comparison of the adult characters with those of the larva, Cooper showed that the latter was P. ambloplitis. He was unable to determine the life cycle of the parasite, but states that "the evidence points to P. ambloplitis having at least two intermediate hosts, the first, some unknown species of aquatic arthropod, and the second, either different species of minnows, small perch, or the final host itself."