ABSTRACT. Thirty-six flukes were collected from the livers of wild deer (Cervus nippon centralis) captured in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, and were served for morphometry. The length and/or the width of the body, suckers, testes, ovary, vitelline glands, cirrus pouch and eggs in the uterus of the flukes were measured. The distance between anterior end of the body and position of the maximal body-width or upper end of the testes were also determined. A remarked morphological characteristic was that the right and left testes did not lie tandem but lined bilaterally. Also the position of the maximal body-width did not always locate in the posterior part of the body of the fluke. The property was in accordance with those for Dicrocoelium chinensis. KEY WORDS: Dicrocoelium chinensis, deer, morphology.J. Vet. Med. Sci. 68(4): 375-377, 2006 Dicrocoelium spp., known as "lancet fluke" or "small liver fluke", parasitize in the bile ducts and the gall bladder of numerous species of mammals, mainly ruminants (sheep, goat, cattle, buffaloes, roe-deer and camels). Although a little has been reported about the dicrocoeliosis, infections of lancet flukes can cause economic loss in ruminant livestock [4].Dicrocoelium dendriticum is most frequently present throughout Europe, North Asia (China), Japan and IndoMalayan region, North Africa, South America, and in some focal points in North America and Australia [5]. As less common species, D. hospes has been reported from Africa [2,3], and D. chinensis from China [7].Species identification for lancet flukes has been under controversy in Japan, although reports on lancet flukes are limited. Presence of two types of Dicrocoelium, i.e., the type of D. dendriticum, which has morphologically typical testes lining tandem [1,8] and the type of D. chinensis, which has testes lining bilaterally [3], has been suggested for lancet flukes in Japan (personal communication).In 1990, a number of lancet flukes were obtained from the livers of the Japanese sika deer (Cervus nippon centralis) captured in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. This report presents and discusses morphology of the lancet flukes obtained from the Japanese sika deer.Deer: Wild deer (Cervus nippon centralis) captured from a mountain area in southern part of Iwate Prefecture (lat. 39°N and long. 141° E), Japan in 1990, were served for this study. Seven males and 1 female, aged 2 to 6 years old, weighing 35 to 70 kg were necropsied.Detection of flukes: At the necropsy, whole liver of each deer was removed, and the livers were incised by using a scalpel. Then each liver was soaked in large size petri dishes with tap water and left over night. Flukes emerged onto the bottom of petri dish from livers were collected. The number of fluke was counted, and the flukes were preserved in a 5% formalin solution.Stain: After removing formalin from the fluke specimens by running water, flukes were stained by the carmine staining with an acetic acid treatment, which is a method for helminth specimens [6].Morphometry: Each fluke specimen was laid on a sli...
