Haliotrema aurigae (Yamaguti, 1968) Plaisance, Bouamer & Morand, 2004, in ornamental reef fish imported into Brazil

Abstract

More than 1.450 marine fish species are commercialized as ornamental fish and approximately 90% of these are wild-caught. Rainford's butterflyfish, Chaetodon rainfordi (McCulloch, 1923), is endemic to the western Pacific. This fish species belongs to one of the main ornamental fish families imported into Brazil. Haliotrema is a genus of the family Dactylogyridae. Species of this genus have very interesting host associations and geographic distributions. The aim of this study was to report on occurrences of exotic Haliotrema aurigae in diseased Rainford butterflyfish that were imported to Brazil. One Rainford’s butterflyfish with suspected parasitic disease was euthanized and subjected to skin and gill scraping. The parasite specimens were mounted on semi-permanent slides with Hoyer’s solution for morphological analysis of sclerotized structures. The hard-sclerotized structures of these specimens were compared and were identified as those of Haliotrema aurigae (Yamaguti, 1968). These results emphasize the importance of implementation of correct control measures at the country’s borders, to avoid the introduction of exotic parasites. In addition, it can be emphasized that the easy adaptation of this parasite to new environments is a concern for ornamental fish farmers.

Parasitological diagnosis in ornamental freshwater fish from different fish farmers of five Brazilian states

“…Apart from host damage, depigmentation, skin ulceration, scale loss, excessive mucus production, gill lesions and reduced growth of fish, parasite infection also increases the mortality ratio by favoring secondary bacterial infections (Xu et al, 2012). Thus, prophylactic measurements adopted in farms and the ornamental fish industry are important tools to minimize the effects of parasitism (Martins et al, 2011;Cardoso et al, 2020b).…”