Kontikia

Kontikia is a genus of land planarians native from islands in the Indo-Pacific region, but several species have been introduced elsewhere.[1]

Kontikia
Kontikia ventrolineata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Platyhelminthes
Class:
Rhabditophora
Order:
Tricladida
Suborder:
Continenticola
Family:
Geoplanidae
Subfamily:
Rhynchodeminae
Tribe:
Caenoplanini
Genus:
Kontikia

Froehlich, 1955
Type species
Kontikia orana
Froehlich, 1955
Synonyms

Parakontikia Winsor, 1991

Description

The genus Kontikia includes planarians of elongate body, with a creeping sole that occupies one to two thirds of the body width. The mesenchymal musculature includes well-developed longitudinal muscles forming a ring zone around the intestine.[2] The copulatory apparatus may or may not have a distinct penis papilla, depending on the degree of contraction of the reproductive structures.[3] This led to an initial classification of specimens without a distinct penis papilla in another genus, Parakontikia.[4]

Genetics

The complete mitochondrial genome of Kontikia ventrolineata (= Parakontikia ventrolineata) was described in 2020. It displays common unusual characteristics shared with Platydemus manokwari, such as its colinearity, an overlap between ND4L and ND4 genes and an unusually long cox2 gene.[5]

Species

The genus Kontikia includes the following species:

References
  1. Justine, Jean-Lou; Thévenot, Jessica; Winsor, Leigh (2014). "Les sept plathelminthes invasifs introduits en France". Phytoma (in French). 674: 28–32. doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.1447202.
  2. Ogren, R. E.; Kawakatsu, M. (1991). "Index to the species of the family Geoplanidae (Turbellaria, Tricladida, Terricola) Part II: Caenoplaninae and Pelmatoplaninae". Bulletin of Fujis Women's College. 29: 35–58.
  3. Jones, Hugh D.; Johns, Peter M.; Winsor, Leigh (1998). "The proposed synonymy of Parakontikia ventrolineata (Dendy, 1892) and Kontikia mexicana (Hyman, 1939): what is a penis papilla?". Hydrobiologia. 383 (1/3): 91–96. doi:10.1023/A:1003478218873. ISSN 0018-8158.
  4. Winsor, L. (1991). "A provisional classification of Australian terrestrial geoplanid flatworms (Tricladida: Terricola: Geoplanidae)". Victorian Naturalist. 109 (2): 42–49.
  5. Gastineau, Romain; Justine, Jean-Lou (2020). "Complete mitogenome of the invasive land flatworm Parakontikia ventrolineata, the second Geoplanidae (Platyhelminthes) to display an unusually long cox2 gene". Mitochondrial DNA Part B. 5 (3): 2115–2116. doi:10.1080/23802359.2020.1765709. ISSN 2380-2359.
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