New Records of Fish Parasitic Isopods (Crustacea: Isopoda) from the Gulf of Thailand

Abstract

From a total of 4140 marine fishes examined, eight species of parasitic isopods were reported from marine fishes in the Gulf of Thailand. These isopods were identified in two families, Corallanidae (Argathona macronema and Argathona rhinoceros) and Cymothoidae (Cymothoa eremita, Cymothoa elegans, Smenispa irregularis, Nerocila sundaica, Norileca indica and Norileca triangulata). Most of these parasitic isopods were found in the buccal cavity of their fish hosts with one host recorded as follows: C. eremita was found from Nemipterus hexodon, C. elegans was found from Scatophagus argus, N. sundaica was found from Saurida tumbil. The majority of the isopod specimens recorded in this study was S. irregularis, which was found in the buccal cavities of five host fish, Pampus argentius, Alepes melanoptera, Caranx hippos, Parastromateus niger and Terapon jarbua, with a prevalence of 11.67%, 10.43%, 9.78%, 6.10% and 4.21%, respectively. Argathona rhinoceros was found in the nasal cavity and branchial cavity of Epinephelus coioides, whereas A. macronema and N. triangulata were found on the skin of Epinephelus coioides and Seriolina nigrofasciata, respectively. The highest species diversity was found in E. coioides, which harbored two species of parasitic isopods, A. macronema and A. rhinoceros. Cymothoa eremita, C. elegans, S. irregularis and N. triangulata were recorded for the first time in the Gulf of Thailand. The reported discovery of C. eremita, S. irregularis, N. sundaica and N. triangulata in their fish hosts were new recorded hosts. Moreover, A. macronema and N. triangulata were found for the first time in the central Indo-Pacific region.

Factors determining community structure of metazoan parasites from brown-spotted grouper, Epinephelus chlorostigma (Valenciennes, 1828) in Southern Saudi Arabia

“…One isopod parasite was identified in this study, namely, A. rhinoceros. It was previously reported from Tetraodon leopardus, E. chlorostigma, Epinephelus tauvina, Epinephelus malabaricus, Plectropomus leopardus, Epinephelus coioides, and Epinephelus cyanopodus [22,40]. The Red Sea is a new geographical record for A. rhinoceros.…”

New Echinoderm-Crab Epibiotic Associations from the Coastal Barents Sea

“…This pattern is relevant for the red king crab population in the Barents Sea as well. For example, we recorded range expansion of the symbiotic amphipod I. commensalis in coastal waters of the Kola Peninsula [ 12 , 13 , 21 , 47 ] with no negative effects for the local bottom communities [ 13 ]. Hemmingsen et al [ 53 ] suggested that the burgeoning population of red king crab along the coast of Finnmark (North Norway) is indirectly responsible for increasing transmission of trypanosomes Trypanosoma murmanense (Nikitin, 1927), parasites of crab-associated fish leeches Johanssonia arctica , to cod Gadus morhua (Linnaeus, 1758).…”

“…For this reason, since 2003, monitoring of the P. camtschaticus population has been conducted by specialists from the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute (MMBI) in coastal waters of the Kola Peninsula [ 4 , 7 , 13 , 17 , 18 ]. Regular studies of symbiotic associations of non-indigenous species are important because they allow the tracking of the establishment and adaptation processes of such alien host species in new places of their distribution and could help evaluate the impacts of these crabs on local communities [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. In addition, such studies could provide new information on the biodiversity of targeted areas and detect changes in local communities associated with human activities and climate shifts [ 20 , 22 ].…”

<i>Norileca</i> aff. <i>triangulata</i> (Isopoda: Cymothoidae), a branchial cavity parasite of the African sailfin flyingfish, <i>Parexocoetus mento </i>(Beloniformes: Exocoetidae), from southern Japan, with a new Japanese record of the isopod genus

“…Nerocila triangulata was originally described from female specimens from Tonimdao Island, the Philippines (Richardson, 1910). The species was later found off Australia (Bruce, 1990), Pakistan (Ghani & Ali, 1998;Kazmi et al, 2002;Ghani, 2003), India (Rameshkmar & Ravichandran, 2015;Ravichandran et al, 2019) and Thailand (Purivirojkul & Songsuk, 2020), and described in detail by Bruce (1990) and Ravichandran et al (2019) using specimens from Australia and India, respectively. These specimens had the antenna composed of 9 articles (vs. 8 articles in the Philippine specimens), but the authors gave no comment on this difference.…”

“…It occurs off the Philippines, Australia, Pakistan, and India and is known to infest three species of teleosts, the sailfin flyingfish, Parexocoetus brachypterus (Richardson, 1846) (Beloniformes: Exocoetidae), the Indian mackerel, Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier, 1817) (Perciformes: Scombridae), and the goldstripe sardinella, Sardinella gibbosa (Bleeker, 1849) (Cluepiformes: Clupeidae) (Bruce, 1990;Ghani & Ali, 1998;Kazmi et al, 2002;Ghani, 2003;Rameshkmar & Ravichandran, 2015;Ravichandran et al, 2019). It was also recorded from the Gulf of Thailand (Purivirojkul & Songsuk, 2020). Norileca borealis was described from specimens from the Indian mackerel in the Arabian Sea (Javed & Yasmeen, 1999).…”