Experimental infections of copepods and sticklebacks Gasterosteus aculeatus with small ensheathed and large third-stage larvae of Anisakis simplex (Nematoda, Ascaridoidea, Anisakidae).

Free-swimming ensheathed larvae of Anisakis simplex were shown experimentally to be ingested by the copepods Oitona similis and Acartia tonsa and by the nauplii of barnacles Balanus sp. The larvae did not grow in the copepod hemocoel. Experimental infections of various malacostracans were unsuccessful. Sticklebacks Gasterosteus aculeatus are naturally infected with larvae of A. simplex in coastal brackish water. Such sticklebacks may have acquired the infection by eating either a crustacean host or third-stage larvae (L3) from fish. Experimental infections of cod Gadus morhua with L3 from viscera of herring Clupea harengus showed that about one-third of the ingested larvae passed through the cod alimentary tract and were extruded whole but dead. Experiments showed that larvae from herring viscera survived and remained infective after at least 6 weeks in brackish water and seawater and that L3 from herring viscera were ingested by sticklebacks (and flounder Platichthys flesus), where they reencapsulated on the viscera; the L3 were alive 2 years later.