Abstract. Laboratory work was conducted to elucidate the life cycle of the South African gnathiid isopod, Gnathia africana Barnard, 1914. The natural fish hosts of this temporary parasite, the super klipfish Clinus superciliosus (Linnaeus, 1758), were exposed to gnathiid larvae in the laboratory. It was found that G. africana has three larval stages, consisting of three unfed (zuphea) and three fed (praniza) stages. First-, second-and third-stage zuphea larvae took an average of 2 h 18 min, 2 h 43 min and 10 h 8 min respectively to complete their feeding and the first-and second-stage praniza moulted at 8 and 10 days respectively into the next zuphea stage. Three to six days after its last blood meal, the sex of the third and final praniza stage could be determined by the presence of either a testis or two ovaries in the dorsal pereon. Male larvae moulted into adult males between 8 and 10 days post feeding. Female larvae moulted at approximately 17 days into adult females. The life cycle and ecology of members of the family Gnathiidae have intrigued scientists for more than two centuries. Even now the information available on these aspects of gnathiid biology is scanty. To the authors' knowledge the life cycle of only the following six of the more than 170 described gnathiid species has been researched in any detail: Gnathia maxillaris (Montagu,
During 1988 parasitological surveys were carried out on the freshwater fish fauna on the island of Taiwan in 12 localities that included fishery stations, reservoirs, fish markets as well as natural rivers and swamps.
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