Hermaphroditism among dioecious Tagelus plebeius (Lightfoot, 1786) (Mollusca, Psammobiidae) and Iphigenia brasiliana (Lamarck, 1818) (Mollusca, Donacidae) on the Cachoeira River Estuary, Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

The samples of Tagelus plebeius and Iphigenia brasiliana were manually collected on the Cachoeira River estuary region (Ilhéus, BA, Brazil) between August 2005 and August 2006, with a periodicity of 15 days, with 20 animals collected/sampled, performing 500 samples from each species. The animals were measured, eviscerated and kept in solution of Davidson and after 24-30 hours, they were transferred to ethanol 70%. The material was processed for routine histology, with paraffin embedding, obtaining 7 microm thick slices, stained with Harris hematoxilin and Eosin (HE). By light microscopy analysis, 2 cases of hermaphroditism (0.4%) in T. plebeius samples and one case (0.2%) in I. brasiliana were registered with predominance of female over male follicles.