Reprint of: CIH keys to the nematode parasites of vertebrates. Farnham Royal: Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux, 1974-1983.

For many years the Keys have provided a working tool to those within the field and laboratory needing to know "what is this worm?" They have also helped to establish a classification, using associations of characters, that gives real insight into nematode relationships across the group and their lines of evolution. This supplementary volume is designed to complement the original CIH Keys, now reprinted as one volume, with the additional convenience of reordering into superfamily. The supplement includes revised and redescribed taxa and draws attention to new taxa, to generic level, published by many authors after the original Keys were complete. It also identifies the current position of some of the older genera not included in the original Keys.

This well illustrated book provides an historical and unified overview of a century and a half of research on the development, life cycles, transmission and evolution of the nematodes found in vertebrates throughout the world. This second, expanded edition includes relevant data from some 450 new references that have appeared from 1989 to 1999. The volume includes nematode parasites of humans, domestic animals and wildlife including fish. After an introductory chapter outlining general principles, the author systematically describes the biological characteristics of the 27 superfamilies of nematodes, followed by families, subfamilies, genera and species.

This book is the first complete illustrated compendium of root-knot nematode species from the genus Meloidogyne including 97 species descriptions with comprehensive diagnoses, information on biology, plant-hosts, pathogenicity, symptoms, distribution and biochemical and molecular diagnostics.

Nematodes are one of the most abundant groups of invertebrates on the face of the earth. Their numbers are estimated to range from 1000 per cm2 in the sand-covered hydrogen sulphide ‘black zone’ beneath the ocean floors to 1.2 billion in a single hectare of soil. Estimates for their species diversity range from 100 000 to 10 million. The past history of nematodes is a mystery, since very few fossils have been discovered. This book establishes a solid base in palaeonematology with descriptions of 66 new fossil species and accounts of all previous fossil and subfossil nematodes from sedimentary deposits, coprolites, amber and mummies. It shows how nematode fossils can be used to establish lineages at various locations and time periods in the earth’s history and when nematodes entered into symbiotic and parasitic associations with plants and animals.

The genus Meloidogyne Göldi, 1892, or root-knot nematodes, represent a relatively small but economically important group of obligate plant pathogens. They are distributed worldwide and parasitize on almost every higher plant species. While reproducing and feeding within roots, they induce galls or root-knots and disorder the physiology of the infected plant, reducing crop yield and product quality. More than eighty nominal species have been described worldwide, while twenty species have been detected in Europe so far. This book includes a historical review on the genus, followed by a revision of the European species, and completed with a study on one of the most characteristic morphological structures within the genus: the perineal pattern.