Studies on the morphology of cercariae obtained from freshwater snails at Erawan Waterfall, Erawan National Park, Thailand.

The morphology of cercariae of freshwater snails from Erawan Waterfall, Erawan National Park, Kanchanaburi Province was studied between December 2002 and August 2003. The snail samples were collected by handpicking using a counts per unit of time sampling method. The cercariae, larva stage of a trematode, were investigated using the shedding method where they were categorized into three groups and six species. The first group, Pleurolophocercous cercariae, consists of Haplorchis pumillo (C1) and Stictodora tridactyla (C3). The second group, Furcocercous cercariae, consisted of Mesostephanus appendicalatus (C2), Transversotrema laruei (C6) and Cardicola alseae(C4). The third group, Xiphidio cercariae, has only one species which is Loxogenoides bicolor (C5). Out of 1163 snails, only 62 were found to be infected by cercariae, equivalent to a 5.33% infection rate. The infections grouped by species of the cercariae are as follows: C, 22 (1.9%), C, 29 (2.5%), C2 1 (0.1%), C6 1 (0.1%), C4 6 (0.5%) and C5 3 (0.3%). The freshwater snail samples consist of four species. From a total of 1163 samples, there are 687 Melanoides jugicostis, 91 Tarebia granifera, 296 Thiara scabra and 89 Melanoides tuberculata. Infections were found in 45 (6.5%), 6 (6.6%), 1 (0.3%) and 10 (11.2%), respectively.