A case of a facultative life-cycle diversification in the fluke Pleurogenoides sp. (Lecithodendriidae, Plagiorchiida).

Numerous specimens of the native, intestinal digenean fluke Pleurogenoides sp. (Lecithodendriidae, Plagiorchiida), a genus known for the simultaneous co-existence of genuine adults and progenetic, adult-like metacercaria, were found by chance parasitizing in the oesophagus of a recently imported, tropical Bristly Bush Viper (Atheris hispida). The snake had before been force-fed with native water frogs, the assumed definitive host of these flukes.

[The significance of malaria in the Western Roman Empire: A text passage in the Digesta].

The significance of malaria for the decadence and the final fall of the Western Roman Empire is discussed controversially. It seems verisimilar that Central Europe was free of malaria at the end of the last ice age, and it is undisputed that the Apennine peninsula was a substantially depopulated, endemic malaria area around 600 A.D.