Type host: Talpa europaea Linnaeus, 1758, European mole.

Other hosts: Probably none (see Remarsks.

Type locality: EUROPE: Italy: near Rovigno.

Geographic distribution: EUROPE: Italy; Bulgaria; Germany.

Description of oocyst: Oocyst shape: ellipsoid; number of walls: 1; wall thickness: <1.0; wall characteristics: smooth; L x W: 12 x 11 (Agostinucci, 1955); L/W ratio: 1.1; M: absent; OR: absent; PG: 1 (?). Distinctive features of oocyst: None.

Description of sporocysts and sporozoites: Sporocyst shape: spindle-shaped (Schaudinn, 1902, line drawing); L x W: 10 x 4 (Agostinucci, 1955); L/W ratio: 2.5; SB: present at both ends of sporocyst (Schaudinn, 1902, line drawing); SSB: absent; PSB: possibly the 2nd SB illustrated by Schaudinn (1902) at end of sporocyst opposite SB; SR: present; SR characteristics: compact mass of granules; SP: elongate, lying head to tail in sporocyst. Distinctive features of sporocyst: according to Schaudinn's line drawing, each sporocyst has a longitudinal suture line all the way around the sporocyst, which the SP eventually break to escape.

Prevalence: 28/28 (100%) in type host, but not the type locality (Agostinucci, 1955).

Sporulation: Exogenous. Oocysts sporulated in 3-4 days (Schaudinn, 1902) and 4-5 days (Tanabe, 1938).

Prepatent and patent periods: Unknown.

Site of infection: Intranuclear in villi epithelial cells of the small (and large?) intestine.

Endogenous development: The accounts of Schaudinn (1902) and Tanabe (1938) of the endogenous life history of this species differ considerably and it is likely that both were confusing the endogenous stages of at least 2 species in the naturally-infected hosts each examined. Therefore, we do not give the measurements/description here of merogony and gamogony from these authors because it is not clear which stage(s) actually are attributed to C. caryolytica. The interested reader can consult the original references for details; this is certainly an area of inquiry that needs to be studied experimentally and resolved.

Materials deposited: None.

Remarks: The literature on this species is equivocal, at best. In his detailed description of the endogenous stages of C. caryolytica, Schaudinn (1902) said that the merozoites that form male and female gamonts are different from each other morphologically, essentially, being sexually dimorphic. Reichenow (1931) suggested that the 2 developmental lines seen by Schaudinn (1902) represented a mixed infection. Tanabe (1938), who also detailed the endogenous development of this (?) species by studying the intestines of 26 moles, described a life cycle that differed significantly from Schaudinn's (1902) description, suggesting they were dealing with different species. Pellerdy (1974, p. 390) mentioned that C. caryolytica was found in P. breweri, but gave no locality data or other supporting evidence, either in his work or from others. Henry (1932) supposedly saw C. caryolytica in S. latimanus, but she based her decision on unsporulated oocysts with only 2 sporoblasts (could have been an Isospora sp.). Golemansky (1979) reported this species in 4/10 T. europaea from the Sreburna Reserve in Bulgaria. His sporulated oocysts were 19 x 11.7 (15-23 x 10.5-13) and sporocysts were 12-15 x 5-8, but no picture was presented. Levine and Ivens (1979) say that Agostinucci (1955) recorded this species from England, but Agostinucci (1955) actually collected his animals in the vicinity of Rome. Entzeroth and Scholtyseck (1984) reported the fine structure of C. caryolytica in the intestine of a mole caught near Bonn, Germany. Both macro- and microgamonts were seen within nuclei of epithelial cells of the small intestine. All developing stages were located in a parasitophorous vacuole. Identification of C. caryolytica was confirmed by finding oocysts in the feces (their Fig. 1); the oocysts they saw were 16-19 x 13-16, but did not resemble those first reported by Schaudinn (1902.

References: Schaudinn (1902); Reichenow (1931); Henry (1932); Tanabe (1938); Agostinucci (1955, 1956); Loser and Gonnert (1965); Canning et al. (1973); Pellerdy (1974); Golemansky (1979); Levine and Ivens (1979); Entzeroth and Scholtyseck (1984).