Genus Anguina

The Wheat Gall Nematode

Important species: A.tritici and A.funestra

• mainly feeds in or on developing buds and floral primordia
• colonizes cereal seedheads producing blackened seed galls
• reproduces in large numbers in infected seeds
• anhydrobiotic nematodes can survive in seedheads up to 30 years
• part of a disease complex causing "Annual ryegrass toxicity" by vectoring Clavibacter toxicus which produces a powerful neurotoxin (corynetoxin)