Family CRICONEMATIDAE

                                  Rev 10/15/08

Classification:

      Tylenchida
       Tylenchina
        Criconematoidea
         Criconematidae (Taylor, 1936)
    Synonyms:
      Macroposthoniidae (Skarbilovich, 1959)
      Madinematidae (Khan, Chawla & Saha, 1975)
      Criconematoidea (Siddiqi, 1980)
      Caloosiidae (Siddiqi, 1980)
      Hemicycliophoridae (Skarbilovich, 1959)

Morphology and Amatomy:

      All stages:

•  vermiform; up to 1.9 mm. 

      Female:

• Body sausage-shaped to cylindrical. 
• Cuticle thick, lacking a typical lateral field (sometimes marked by irregularities in body annuli and/or superficial longitudinal lines extremely variable within the same species). 
• Body annuli either retrorse, provided or not with lobation, crenation, scales or spines, or rounded and covered or not with an extra-cuticular layer. 
• Labial area variously shaped; submedian lobes absent or variously developed.  Labial sclerotization strong. 
• Stylet massive; cone much longer than base plus knobs; stylet knobs anchor-shaped or sloping backwards. 
• Isthmus very short; esophageal glandular bulb markedly reduced.        

 Male:

• No stylet. 
• Spicules variously shaped. 
• Caudal alae absent or well-developed.   

 Juvenile:

• Cuticle showing same range of variations as in female, but in some groups, juvenile and female may have different ornamentation; cuticular spines or scales, if present, arranged in longitudinal rows, stylet non-reduced, functional (lacking in some male J4 of Hemicycliophora spp.).

 Etymology:

• From the Greek: krikos = ring, nema = thread

References:

Raski & Luc, Rev. Nematol. 10(4):409-433 (1987).

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