Arhythmacanthidae
family of worms
Arhythmacanthidae is a family of parasitic worms from the order Echinorhynchida.
Species
There are 9 genera in the family Arhythmacanthidae which contains the following species:
Acanthocephaloides
Acanthocephaloides Meyer, 1932 contains 13 known species:
Acanthocephaloides claviformis Araki & Machida, 1987
Found off Japan. The proboscis has 14 rows each of 6 hooks and 2 spines and the trunk has an anterior swelling. The apical hooks are the smallest; posterior hook largest, reaching up to 74 um. Hook and spine roots (when present) invariably simple, posteriorly directed, without manubria. Trunk spines are markedly smaller, with a variable distribution of trunk spines only on the anterior side.
Acanthocephaloides cyrusi Bray, Spencer-Jones & Lewis, 1988
A. cyrusi has been found parasitizing the fish: Blackhand sole (Pegusa nasuta referred to by its synonym Solea bleekeri) and the Small-spotted grunter (Pomadasys commersonnii) in Lake St. Lucia, Natal, South Africa. It is distinguished from the other species in the genus Arhythmacanthidae by the more greater sexual dimorphism in length, differing arrangement of hooks, the proboscis with the longest hooks at the anterior-most part and the larger size of proboscis hooks and body spines. Specifically, the proboscis hook rows with 3 spines and 3 hooks that increase in size anteriorly.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2519383. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1987 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arhythmacanthidae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.