Morphometric and phylogenetic analyses of Serpentirhabdias viperidicus n. sp. (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) from the lancehead snake Bothrops moojeni Hoge, 1966 (Reptilia: Serpentes: Viperidae) in Brazil

Abstract

Serpentirhabdias viperidicus n. sp. (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) is described from the lungs of the 'Brazilian lancehead' Bothrops moojeni (Hoge, 1966) from the savannah in São Paulo State, Brazil. The new species is the eighth species of Serpentirhabdias described in the Neotropical region, and differs from other species mainly by a combination of characters: lips slightly notable, presence of fine striations at posterior ends, presence of two parallel lines with intercalated pores, a pore-shaped phasmid situated at the level of the anal aperture and another two in the posterior half of the tail. It is the first species of Serpentirhabdias reported in this snake host and the second species of this genus found parasitizing South American viperidian snakes. Molecular phylogenetic analysis using ribosomal (ITS and 28S partial) genes confirms Serpentirhabdias viperidicus n. sp. as a new species that clustered in the Serpentirhabdias clade, sister taxon to Serpentirhabdias fuscovenosa and Serpentirhabdias elaphe. This is the first description of Serpentirhabdias species from Brazil using molecular approaches and morphological characters to confirm the monophyly of this recent genus.

Diversity in the genusRhabdias(Nematoda, Rhabdiasidae): Evidence for cryptic speciation

“…Serpentirhabdias fuscovenosa Railliet, 1899; S . viperidicus Morais et al, ; and S . lamothei Martinez‐Salazar and Leon‐Regagnon, 2006 were used as an outgroup.…”

“…Molecular data have been successfully applied to the study of nematodes in general and, in particular, the genus Rhabdias (Cipriani, Mattiucci, Paoletti, Santoro, & Nascetti, ; Dare, Nadler, & Forbes, ; Dubey & Shine, ; Langford & Janovy, ; Lhermitte‐Vallarino et al, ; Morais et al, ; Nascimento et al, ; Tkach, Kuzmin, et al, ). Several molecular markers have been used for Rhabdiasidae, including ribosomal and mitochondrial genes (Cipriani et al, ; Dare et al, ; Dubey & Shine, ; Junker et al, ; Langford & Janovy, ; Lhermitte‐Vallarino et al, ; Nascimento et al, ; Tkach, Halajian, & Kuzmin, ; Tkach, Kuzmin, et al, ).…”

Description, molecular characterization and life cycle of Serpentirhabdias mussuranae n. sp. (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) from Clelia clelia (Reptilia: Colubroidea) in Brazil

“…is assigned to the genus Serpentirhabdias Tkach, Kuzmin & Snyder, 2014 based on the arrangement of lips in two lateral groups, body cuticle only slightly inflated in anterior and posterior parts of body, absence of the buccal capsule and parasitism in the lung of a snake. Among the Neotropical representatives of the genus, three species are known to have the onchia in the oesophastome: S. atroxi , S. moi and S. viperidicus (Kuzmin et al ., 2016; Morais et al ., 2017; Machado et al ., 2018). However, due to insufficient details provided in some of the descriptions it cannot be excluded that some other Neotropical Serpentirhabdias may possess onchia.…”

A new species ofRhabdias(Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae), a lung parasite ofPseudopaludicola pocoto(Anura: Leptodactylidae) from north-eastern Brazil: description and phylogenetic analyses

“…obtained from GenBank (table 1). As an outgroup, the taxon chosen was Serpentirhabdias viperidicus Morais, Aguiar, Muller, Narciso, Silva & Silva, 2017 (GenBank accession number KX350054). Sequences were aligned using the default parameters of the Muscle algorithm (Edgar, implemented in Geneious 7.1.3 (Kearse et al ., 2012).…”