A new species of Leposphilus Hesse, 1866 (Copepoda: Philichthyidae) parasitic in the interorbital canals of the whitemouth croaker Micropogonias furnieri (Desmarest) (Sciaenidae) off Brazil with an amended diagnosis of the genus

Abstract

A new species of the monotypic genus Leposphilus Hesse, 1866 (Cyclopoida: Philichthyidae), Leposphilus vogti n. sp., is described based on adult female and male specimens from the interorbital canals of Micropogonias furnieri (Desmarest) (Sciaenidae) in Sepetiba Bay, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The new species differs from its only congener, L. labrei Hesse, 1866, by the following combination of characters in the adult female: a globular cephalosome, a two-segmented maxilla, and fourth abdominal somite fused to caudal ramus; and in the adult male: presence of maxilliped, leg 3 with five setae, and caudal rami tipped with six setae. In addition, an amendment of diagnosis of Leposphilus is provided based on the characters of the new species. Previous records of philichthyid copepods from actinopterygians in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans off the American continent are also given.

Two new species of Colobomatus Hesse, 1873 (Crustacea: Philichthyidae) parasitic in the interorbital canals of Holocentrus spp. (Holocentriformes: Holocentridae) in the South Atlantic Ocean

“…At present, 42 species of cyclopoids have been recorded to parasitize marine fish in Brazil; seven of these (16%) belong to the family Philichthyidae, i.e., six species of Colobomatus, including the two species described herein, and one species of Leposphilus (Luque et al, 2013;Paschoal et al, 2016a). In contrast, 78 species of cyclopoids have been recorded to parasitize freshwater fish in Brazil, where in the last 2 years, five new species and two new genera have been described (Taborda et al, 2016;Narciso et al, 2019;Narciso & Da Silva, 2020).…”

“…Philichthyids have global distribution, but most species can be found in the Mediterranean Sea and Australian waters (Boxshall & Halsey, 2004;Madinabeitia & Iwasaki, 2013). However, some authors are convinced that the current diversity of this family may represent only the ''tip of the iceberg'' because philichthyids are usually overlooked during fish dissections and their uneven biogeographical distribution may be explained by the sampling effort of researchers (Kabata, 1979;Paschoal et al, 2016a).…”

“…Records of the family in the western South Atlantic are scarce, with only six species of three genera recorded so far: four belonging to Colobomatus, i.e. C. belizensis Cressey & Schotte, 1983 (Luque & Tavares, 2007;Paschoal et al, 2016a).…”

Parasitic copepods (Crustacea: Copepoda) infecting muscles of a marine fish (Actinopterygii: Moridae)—A spectacular effect on a host fish and a case of seafood identity fraud

“…Some of those papers illustrate nicely the nature of fish infection (Nagasawa et al 2015) while others document details of morphology (e.g., clusters of eggs associated with the gall wall; Osman et al 2014), or the male appearance (Momoyama and Tensha 2006). There is a number of secondary sources mentioning Sarcotaces species (Ehrenbaum 1936, Amlacher 1986, González and Acuña 1998, Gordeev et al 2017, Kietzmann et al 1969, Love et al 1984, Luque et al 2008, Moles 1982, Möller and Anders 1986, Paschoal et al 2016, Priebe 2007, Varela and Lalana 2015, Zubchenko 1987 and they are also important because of some additional data and/or remarks.…”

Occurrence of Metacaligus rufus (Wilson, 1908) (Copepoda, Caligidae) parasitizing the cownose ray Rhinoptera bonasus (Mitchill, 1815) (Elasmobranchii, Myliobatidae) in Brazil

“…Records of parasitic copepods on elasmobranch fishes in Brazil are scarce, and today of the 211 known species copepods found to parasite fishes in the Brazilian coast, only 16 have been reported from cartilaginous fishes, accounting for 10% of the total (Luque et al, 2013;Paschoal et al, 2016;Taborda et al, 2016). To date, there are no previous records of parasitic copepods on the cownose ray, for this in the present paper we documented the first record of a caligid copepod on R. bonasus, and the first occurrence of M. rufus parasitizing an elasmobranch host into world's oceans.…”