Carrot (Daucus carota subsp. Sativus) is known as one of the most widely cultivated and widely consumed vegetables in the world due to its nutritional and economic values. During a survey of nematodes parasites carrots from Vietnam, six populations of three species of root-knot nematodes, namely M. incognita, M. arenaria, and M. graminicola were found. The species specific primers were confirmed before morphological studies. By combining the morphology and morphometry of the females, males, and juveniles, this study provided useful references for classification of Meloidogyne on carrots in the future. Quantitative morphological studies reveal profound changes corresponding with the generation of morphological disparity at high taxonomic diversity. Especially, this study provided the first morphological and morphometric information of M. graminicola, that is known as aquatic root-knot nematodes, on carrots.
Objective: To find out the in vitro antiplasmodial activity of Pergularia daemia leaf extract against Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine sensitive 3D7 strain and Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistant K1 strain and cytotoxicity against Vero cell line.
Methods: The P. daemia plant was collected from Kadaparajupalle at Dornala mandal, Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Leaf crude extracts prepared in Soxhlet apparatus with hexane, chloroform and methanol solvents. These extracts were tested for in vitro antiplasmodial activity against 3D7 and K1 strains by standard laboratory protocol. In vitro Cytotoxicity of the leaf extract was also tested by following standard laboratory method.
Results: Hexane, chloroform and methanolic extracts of leaf shown good antiplasmodial activity against 3D7 strain i.e., hexane leaf extract shown IC50 of 11.04 µg/ml, chloroform leaf extract of 7.98 µg/ml and methanolic leaf extract of 6.33 µg/ml. Hexane, chloroform and methanolic extracts showed very active antiplasmodial activity against K1 strain with IC50 values of 4.79 µg/ml, 4.01 µg/ml and 2.91 µg/ml respectively. And all the leaf extracts were non-toxic against Vero cell line with CC50 >20 µg/ml.
Conclusion: The methanolic extract of leaf is effective and shown excellent antimalarial activity for the development of new antimalarial drug policies.
Amphibians live in varied habitats. This fact probably explains the great morphofunctional diversity in their skins. Although the integument is the structural and functional interface between the organism and its environment, the morphological and complexity of amphibian skin is not fully understand. There is practically no information on the integument of the tree frog Polypedates leucomystax found in Cherrapunjee. Therefore, ultrastructure of the skin of the adult frog of Polypedates leucomystax was studied during the breeding phase with the help of transmission electron microscopy. Adult males and females of Polypedated leucomystax were collected from the study sites at Cherrapunjee. The epidermis consisted of four layers namely, stratum corneum, stratum granulosum, stratum spinosum and stratum germinativum. Desmosomes, ribosomes, tonofilaments, golgi bodies, vacuoles and collagen fibres were observed in the epidermal cells. The basement membrane composed of collagenous fibres separated the epidermis from the dermis. Pigment cells like pterinosomes, melanophores and iridophores were abserved and these pigment cells may work together to determine the varied skin colouration and patterns displayed in Polypedates leucomystax and may have important roles in adapting this frog to its environment.
A new nemacheiline loach, Aborichthys iphipaniensis sp. nov. is described from the Iphipani River in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeastern India. It can be distinguished from congeners in having the following combination of characters: vent closer to snout tip than caudal fin base, long caudal peduncle, shallow body, short pre-dorsal, small eye, lateral line incomplete reaching pelvic fin origin, 33-35 almost uniform bars on lateral side of the body, and obliquely truncate caudal fin. It is considered to be a highly specialised form of the genus Aborichthys inhabiting the torrential river, as it has a very elongate body with a far forward position of the vent and long caudal peduncle.
Nutritional quality of fish depends upon the feed supplied. Supplementary feeding is known to increase the carrying capacity of culture system and can enhance the fish production by many folds. Realizing the importance of formulated feeding the present work was designed to supplement freeze dried tubifex along with the normal groundnut oil cake diet, to evaluate the nutritional indices in juveniles of Catla catla fingerlings. Experimental diet – I comprised of groundnut cake combined with freeze dried tubifex. Experimental diet – II was commercially available freeze dried Tubifex. Control fishes were fed with normal groundnut cake. Fishes initially weighing about 2.5 to 2.8 gms and length of about 6.3 to 6.4 cms were selected for the present study. The formulated feeding was given for a period of 30 days. A significant increase was observed in the body weight, length and the nutritional indices of the fishes fed on both experimental diets.
The objective of the investigation encompasses the study of the prevalence of infection, intensity and abundance of endohelminths infecting live fishes. A total of 250 fishes comprising of 60 Channapunctata, 60 Clariasbatrachus, 60 Heteropneustes fossilis, 40 Anabastestudineus and 30 Notopterus notopterus were collected from various districts of West Bengal from December 2018–January 2019. Detection of endohelminths in sampled fishes and various parameters were studied by standard procedures. Helminth parasites recovered included nematode Eustrongylides sp., trematode Euclinostomumheterostomum and Clinostomumcomplanatum and acanthocephalan Pallisentis(B.) allahabadii. The nematodes constituted highest prevalence amongst the parasites recovered, in comparison to trematodes and acanthocephalans. Amongst fishes forty three percentage C. punctata, thirty three percentage C.batrachus, twenty six percentage of H. fossilis were found to be infected by helminth parasites. Prominent infection was not detected in A.testudineus and N. notopterus. Thus amongst all the host fishes studied, C. punctata was found to harbour maximum number of endohelminths infecting various visceral organs which might be caused by the increased pollution level in the water bodies.
