Radopholus similis

Taxobox
name = Burrowing nematode
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Nematoda
classis = Secernentea
subclassis = Diplogasteria
ordo = Tylenchida
familia = Pratylenchidae
genus = "Radopholus"
species = "R. similis"
binomial = "Radopholus similis"
binomial_authority = (Cobb, 1893) Thorne, 1949

Burrowing nematode or Banana-root nematode ("Radopholus similis") is an important parasite of fruit, vegetable, and other crops. It is an especially important pest of bananas and citrus, but it will also attack coconut, avocado, coffee, sugarcane, and assorted other types of grasses and ornamentals. It is a migratory endoparasite of roots. The nematode causes a lesion on the plant's root that forms a canker, and the plant suffers from malnutrition while the nematode completes its life cycle within the root.