''Bucephalus'' ("ox head") is the genus name for many

trematode Trematoda is a class of flatworms known as flukes. They are obligate internal parasites with a complex life cycle requiring at least two hosts. The intermediate host, in which asexual reproduction occurs, is usually a snail. The definitive host ...

flatworm The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths (from the Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegment ...

s that are parasites of

molluscs Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil sp ...

and

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

. Like other

Bucephalidae Bucephalidae is a family of trematodes that parasitize fish. They lack suckers, having instead a muscular organ called a "rhynchus" at the front end which they use to attach to their hosts. The characteristics of the rhynchus are used to help def ...

, they are found in fish both as adults and as

metacercariae Trematodes are parasitic flatworms of the class ''Trematoda'', specifically parasitic flukes with two suckers: one ventral and the other oral. Trematodes are covered by a tegument, that protects the organism from the environment by providing secr ...

. In marine and freshwater

teleosts Teleostei (; Greek ''teleios'' "complete" + ''osteon'' "bone"), members of which are known as teleosts ), is, by far, the largest infraclass in the class Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fishes, containing 96% of all extant species of fish. Teleo ...

, they live as parasites inside the digestive tract, especially the intestine. Haeckel Platodes Bucephalus

The genus ''Bucephalus'' was based on the earliest known bucephalid, '' B. polymorphus'' Baer (1827), initially described from a

cercaria A cercaria (plural cercariae) is the larval form of the trematode class of parasites. It develops within the germinal cells of the sporocyst or redia. A cercaria has a tapering head with large penetration glands. It may or may not have a long sw ...

larva.

Siebold Siebold or von Siebold is a German surname: * Carl Caspar von Siebold (1736–1807), surgeon * Regina von Siebold (1771–1849), obstetrician * Adam Elias von Siebold (1775–1828), medical doctor * Charlotte von Siebold (1788–1859), gynaecol ...

(1848) believed that the adult bucephalid he named ''Gasterostomum fimbriatum'' represented an adult form of the same bucephalid, but this identity has never been proved. The name ''Bucephalus'' meaning "ox head" was chosen because of the horn-like appearance of the forked tail (furcae) of its cercaria. By what Manter calls a "curious circumstance", horns are also suggested by the long tentacles of adult worms. They are distinguished from other genera in the same family by having tentacles associated with the anterior sucker. Genus members have their mouth in the middle of the body. An earlier name for this genus was ''Gasterostomum'', given by von Siebold in 1848 to all adult trematodes with a ventral mouth. Odhner (1905) established two suborders of digenean trematodes called Gasterostomata and Protostomata. The two genera in Gasterostomata were ''Gasterostomum'' (now ''Bucephalus'') and ''Prosorhynchus,'' of which the former has an anterior sucker separate from its digestive tract and the latter has an anterior rhynchus. Members of the genus ''Bucephalus'' are also sometimes referred to as "gasterostomes."

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4982517 Digenea genera Plagiorchiida