Biomphalaria glabrata susceptibility to Schistosoma mansoni has a strong genetic component, offering the possibility for investigating host–parasite interactions at the molecular level, perhaps leading to novel control approaches. The identification, mapping and molecular characterisation of genes that influence the outcome of parasitic infection in the intermediate snail host is, therefore, seen as fundamental to the control of schistosomiasis. To better understand the evolutionary processes driving disease resistance/susceptibility phenotypes, we previously identified polymorphic random amplification of polymorphic DNA and genomic simple sequence repeats from B. glabrata. In the present study we identified and characterised polymorphic expressed simple sequence repeats markers (Bg-eSSR) from existing B. glabrata expressed sequence tags. Using these markers, and with previously identified genomic simple sequence repeats, genetic linkage mapping for parasite refractory and susceptibility phenotypes, the first known for B. glabrata, was initiated. Data mining of 54,309 expressed sequence tag, produced 660 expressed simple sequence repeats of which dinucleotide motifs (TA)n were the most common (37.88%), followed by trinucleotide (29.55%), mononucleotide (18.64%) and tetranucleotide (10.15%). Penta- and hexanucleotide motifs represented