Zoomorphology - The Rieger Award 2023 goes to ...

The Rieger Award 2023 – comparative study on parasitic larvae takes the prize!

This year‘s Rieger Award goes to Peter Smirnov and Anna Gonchar, who delved into the details of the Miracidium of Steringophorus furciger (Digenea:Fellodistomidae) and other passive Bucephalata larvae (this opens in a new tab) – thank you very much for this contribution and many congratulations!

In their study, the authors used transmission electron microscopic images of ultrathin (70nm) sections of enigmatic larvae of digenean parasites to reconstruct their body architecture and compared it to that of two closely related species (a. Steringophorus furciger, b. Paravatrema affinis, c. Prosorhynchus squamatus, Figure 7 in the publication, ©Peter Smirnov). Miracidia present one of the main infection stages in the digenean life cycle. Besides actively swimming and infecting miracidia, some species have also developed passively infecting larvae, whose eggs gets swallowed by the snails and the larvae hatch inside the host. Those stages are generally smaller and their shell often less penetrable by conventional fixation means than their free-swimming relatives – therefore this study not only offers a description in unprecedented detail, but also a novel approach to study these organisms. For more details, check their article in Zoomorphology (this opens in a new tab) .