Mullets (Mugilidae) are economically important fish in Israel. Two species of mugilids (i.e., the thinlip mullet Chelon ramada and the flathead grey mullet Mugil cephalus) have been stocked in the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) in order to increase fishermen’s income and lake water quality. These catadromous species do not reproduce in the lake, consequently, fingerlings have been introduced every year since 1958. Following a survey of myxozoan infections in the Sea of Galilee, we described Myxobolus pupkoi n. sp. infecting the gill arches, and reported Myxobolus exiguus from visceral peritoneum and gall bladder of C. ramada. The prevalence of infection of both Myxobolus pupkoi n. sp. and M. exiguus were 11.5% (2/23). Our study indicates that the parasites infecting C. ramada belong to a lineage of myxozoans infecting mugilids. This result suggests that the infection took place in the Mediterranean Sea, where the fingerlings were caught, before their introduction into the Sea of Galilee. Since 2018 only farm-raised fingerlings have been introduced. We thus recommend to closely monitor the presence of these parasites in the future to determine if the presence of parasites disappear with the introduction of farm-raised fingerlings.
Myxozoans are an economically important group of microscopic metazoan parasites of fish. The myxozoan species Thelohanellus filli infects commercially important freshwater fish both in wild and in cultured habitat. This parasite causes gill hemorrhagic disease and significant damage to the respiratory surface of the infected fish. In the present study, the 18S rDNA gene sequence of morphologically identified T. filli infecting the gill lamellae of the Indian major carp, Labeo rohita, was characterized. This revealed that we are actually dealing with a species complex containing T. bifurcata, T. jiroveci and T. seni. Phylogenetically, T. filli clustered with other myxozoan parasites, with the species most closely related to T. filli having 96 to 97% sequence similarity. The intraspecific variation demonstrated in this study points towards the importance of newer approaches to facilitate reassessment of taxa and detecting species complexes and cryptic species.
The pool barb, Puntius sophore Hamilton, 1822, is a tropical freshwater cyprinid fish native to inland waters in Asia. Herein, a novel myxozoan from plasmodia on the caudal fin of P. sophore from Ranjit Sagar Wetland in Punjab, India is described. Myxospores were consistent with the genus Myxobolus, ellipsoidal in frontal view, lemon-shaped in lateral view; length 7.76 ± 0.28 µm, width 5.36 ± 0.15 µm. There were two polar capsules of unequal size: a larger polar capsule, length 3.01 ± 0.08 µm, width 1.83 ± 0.11 µm, with 6-7 turns of the polar filament, and a smaller polar capsule, length 1.71 ± 0.15 µm, width 0.94 ± 0.07 µm, with 3-4 turns of the polar filament. The 1183 bp 18S rDNA sequence was up to 95% similar to Myxobolus spp. from other cyprinid fishes in India. Given the novel host, unique myxospore morphology, and 18S rDNA sequence, we propose Myxobolus puntiusii n. sp.
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