[A new lung fluke from the coastal range of ecuador: Paragonimus ecuadoriensis n.sp. (paragonimidae, trematoda) (author's transl)].

P. ecuadoriensis in the first lung fluke described from Ecuador. The description is based on 10 adult flukes from a natural infected Coati (Nasua nasua), 23 adults from 2 experimentally infected cats, and 200 metacercariae from the second intermediate host, the freshwater crab Hypolobocera aequatorialis. The new species is characterized by the following features: mouth succer larger than acetabulum or nearly of the same size; integument spines ("cuticular" spines) single; ovary with 5-6 short branches, which divide into more or less short broad lobes; testes larger than ovary with 5-6 simple or polymorphic lobes; eggs longish-ovoid, shell thin and uniform in thickness; surface undulated. Metacercariae not encysted. The adults of the new species are differentiated from probably related lung flukes P. peruvianus, P. mexicanus, and P. inca by the different morphology of ovary and testes, and by the size and form of the eggs. The metacercariae of P. ecuadoriensis are located not only in the hepatopancreas of the crab host - as it is in the case of P. peruvianus - but also and more frequently in the musculature. Paragonimus-eggs from sputum of two patients show partly the same characteristics as the eggs from animal hosts. One may therefore assume that P. ecuadoriensis is infecting humans in the investigated area.