Redescription and resurrection of the status of () (Eucestoda, Dipylidiidae).

A study of the parasite fauna of feral cats in Dubai revealed the presence of two species, (Diamare, 1893) and (Baer, 1924). While the wide distribution of includes countries of the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe, was previously reported from felid hosts from southern Africa and has not been found in other cat parasite surveys in the Middle East, except from Dubai. The availability of historical references, however, raised doubts about the correctness of the allocation of the small sp. from Dubai cats to and for this reason, a reexamination of stored material in the parasite collection of the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Dubai was carried out. A total of 40 specimens of the small sp. with a strobila length between 30 and 60 mm and consisting of 52 to 85 segments obtained from domestic cats and formerly allocated to were studied. In complete specimens, 10 - 13 rows of rostellar hooks were counted. Mature segments were wider than long, round testes were concentrated posterior to coiled vasa deferentia and did not reach the anterior rim of the proglottids. Narrow cirri reached up to 520 μm in length. Gravid segments were longer than wide and egg capsules were restricted to the space between longitudinal excretory vessels. The examination revealed that the morphology of these cestodes matched the main characteristics of . However, the little known cestode, (Setti, 1895), that had been described from imported from Eritrea 29 years earlier and was declared a met the same main morphological criteria. In this paper, the status of as a valid species was resurrected and was declared a junior synonym.