Abstract

The present study was undertaken to determine the pattern of infestation with the encysted larvae of digenetic trematodes in freshwater fish collected in both the natural and fish breeding ponds in Kyungpook Province, Korea. The fish collected in the two natural ponds, Nass-chil, and Sa-il, and three fish breeding ponds, Deok-dong, Mo-gok, and Seongryu-tunnel, were examined from July 1980 to August 1981. The data were compared with the results obtained from freshwater fish caught in the river Kumho by Hwang and Choi(1980). Ten species of fish caught in the ponds were examined for the presence of the larval trematodes. Seven species of the larvae, Clonorchis sinensis, Cyathocotyle orientalis, Echinochasmus species, Exorchis oviformis, Metacercaria hasegawai, Metagonimus yokogawai, and Metorchis orientails and two kinds of undetermined cyst A and B were found. The infestitation rate for Clonorchis sinensis metacercaria in the Korean shiner, Gnathopogon atromaculatus collected in the natural ponds was higher than the rate in the river Kumho by Hwang and Choi(1980), but lower in the fish collected in the breeding ponds. By contrast, the infestation rate in the flat bitterling, Paracheilognathus rhombea in ponds was higher, while there was no change of the rate in the southern top-mouthed minnow, Pseudorasbora parva. The intensity of infestation, expressed as the average number of Clonorchis sinensis metacercaria per gram of flesh, were lower than in the bullhead, Coreobagrus brevicorpus, and Gnathopogon atromaculatus in the ponds in 1981. The intensity was higher in Paracheilognathus rhombea, but no fluctuation in the intensity of infestation in Pseudorasbora parva was observed. The infestation rates and densities for the encysted larvae of digenetic trematodes except for Clonorchis sinensis varied from fish to fish. However, it was found that the rate and intensity of the larval trematodes from all the fish in the ponds was lower than from those in the rivers in Kyungpook Province, Korea.