Feeding experiments

The term feeding experiment, as used here, denotes an attempt to obtain the adults of the metacercariae established experimentally in the small fish listed above by feeding these small fish to larger fish.

The larger fish selected as experimental hosts for feeding experiments were those in which bucephalid infections had not been reported by Manter (1954) or recorded by the author during the course of independent studies. These included Helcogramma medium, Acanthoclinus quadridactylus, Tripterygion sp. and Trachelochismus sp. collected with a dip net from rock pools at Island Bay; Geniagnus monopterygius (Bloch and Schneider) and Pseudolabrus celidotus (Forster) collected by otter-trawl in Wellington Harbour; Scorpaena cardinalis Richardson and Pseudolabrus coccineus (Forster) caught on a hand line at Island Bay. These fish were kept in aquaria supplied with running sea-water from the open sea at Island Bay.

Helcogramma medium, Tripterygion sp. and Trachelochismus sp. were fed chopped up pieces of fish that had been experimentally infected with metacercariae. Geniagnus monopterygius, P. celidotus and P. coccineus would not feed naturally on live or recently killed infected fish and had to be force fed. Acanthoclinus quadridactylus and S. cardinalis readily took live infected fish placed in the aquaria.