From December 2012 to November 2014, 267 fish belonging to the family Profundulidae (representing nine of the 11 species of the genus Profundulus) were collected in 26 localities of Middle-America, across southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, comprising the distribution range of the genus, and analyzed for helminth parasites. Additionally, a database with all ten available published accounts of the helminth parasite fauna of this genus (the only genus within the family) was assembled. Based on both sources of information, a checklist containing all the records was compiled as a tool to address future questions in the areas of evolutionary biology, biogeography, ecology and phylogeography of this host-parasite association. The helminth parasite fauna of this fish group consists of 20 nominal species, classified in 17 genera and 14 families. It includes six species of adult digeneans, five metacercariae, two monogeneans, one adult cestode, three adult nematodes and three larval nematodes. The profundulid fishes are parasitized by a specialized group of helminth species (e.g. Paracreptotrema blancoi sensu Salgado-Maldonado et al. (2011b), Paracreptotrema profundulusi Salgado-Maldonado, Caspeta-Mandujano & Martínez Ramírez, 2011, Phyllodistomum spinopapillatum Pérez-Ponce de León, Pinacho-Pinacho, Mendoza-Garfias & García-Varela, 2015, Spinitectus humbertoi Mandujano-Caspeta & Moravec, 2000, Spinitectus mariaisabelae Caspeta-Mandujano Cabañas-Carranza & Salgado-Maldonado, 2007 and Rhabdochona salgadoi Mandujano-Caspeta & Moravec, 2000), representing the core helminth fauna that are not shared with other Middle-American fish species.

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Adults of Hysteromorpha triloba (Rudolpi, 1819), Lutz, 1931 inhabit primarily the intestine of cormorants across the globe, whereas metacercariae have been found in the body cavity of freshwater fishes of the families Cyprinidae, Ictaluridae, Ariidae, Pimelodidae and Catostomidae. In this study, adults and metacercariae identified as H. triloba were collected from the Neotropical cormorant (Nannopterum brasilianus) and from the Mexican tetra fish (Astyanax mexicanus) from the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean slopes in the Neotropical region. Partial DNA sequences of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (cox 1) and the internal transcribed spacers (ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2) of nuclear ribosomal DNA were generated for both developmental stages, and were compared with available sequences of H. triloba from the Nearctic region. The genetic divergence between metacercariae and adults of H. triloba from the Neotropical and Nearctic region (Canada) associated with the double-crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritus), ranged from 0 to 5.5% for cox 1 and from 0 to 0.2% for ITS. Phylogenetic analyses inferred with both molecular markers using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference placed the adults and metacercariae in a single clade, confirming that both stages are conspecific. Our data confirmed that H. triloba is a widely distributed species across the Americas, parasitizing both the Neotropical and Nearctic cormorants in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, USA and Canada.

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