A few acanthocephalans were gently punctured with a fine needle, stained with Mayer’s paracarmine, destained in 70% acid ethanol, dehydrated in a graded ethanol series, cleared in methyl salicylate and mounted on permanent slides with Canada balsam. Each slide with a cystacanth was deposited in the Colección Nacional de Helmintos, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, under numbers (CNHE, 11888–11895). Additional samples of unstained cystacanths were deposited at the Museum Southwestern Biology, Parasite Collection (under number MSB, 35989–35990). In addition, vouchers of our sample of Brown Basilisks were deposited in the Museum Southwestern Biology, USA, under numbers (MSB, 35979–35988, 35991–35997).
The cystacanths were analysed with a Leica DM 1000 LED microscope equipped with bright field (Leica, Wetzlar, Germany). The acanthocephalans were identified by conventional morphological criteria following the study of Moore (1946 (link)). For scanning electron microscopy (SEM), two cystacanths were individually dehydrated with an ethanol series, critical point dried, sputter coated with gold, and examined with a Hitachi Stereoscan Model S-2469N scanning electron microscope operating at 15 kV at the Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
The cystacanths were analysed with a Leica DM 1000 LED microscope equipped with bright field (Leica, Wetzlar, Germany). The acanthocephalans were identified by conventional morphological criteria following the study of Moore (1946 (link)). For scanning electron microscopy (SEM), two cystacanths were individually dehydrated with an ethanol series, critical point dried, sputter coated with gold, and examined with a Hitachi Stereoscan Model S-2469N scanning electron microscope operating at 15 kV at the Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).