Some aspects of the taxonomy and biology of adult spirurine nematodes parasitic in fishes: a review

Abstract

Abstract. About 300 species belonging to four superfamilies (Gnathostomatoidea, Habronematoidea, Physalopteroidea and Thelazioidea) of the nematode suborder Spirurina are known as the adult parasites of freshwater, brackish-water and marine fishes. They are placed in four families, of which the Gnathostomatidae, including Echinocephalus with a few species and the monotypic Metaleptus, are parasites of elasmobranchs, whereas Ancyracanthus contains one species in teleosts; the Physalopteridae is represented in fish by four genera, Bulbocephalus, Heliconema, Paraleptus and Proleptus, each with several species in both elasmobranchs and teleosts. The majority of fish spirurines belongs to the Rhabdochonidae, which includes 10 genera

Are similar the parasite communities structure ofTrachelyopterus coriaceus and Trachelyopterus galeatus (Siluriformes: Auchenipteridae) in the Amazon basin?

“…It is well known that the diet of the fish can be deduced from trophically transmitted parasites and because most endoparasites are associated with a specific ecological niche and diet, high diversity in host parasite fauna is often a result of a diverse host diet. Hence, a diverse parasitic communities of trophically transmitted parasites may indicate that the host population consumed a diversity of prey in habitat (WILSON & HUBSCHMAN, 1985;MORAVEC, 2007;TARASCHEWSKI, 2008;MOREIRA et al, 2009;MORAVEC, 2009;NEVES et al, 2013;TAVARES-DIAS et al, 2013;BITTENCOURT et al, 2014b;TAVARES-DIAS et al, 2014).…”

“…For Cystidicolidae, species of crustaceans are the intermediate hosts and fish are paratenic or definitive hosts during their life cycle. However, the adult forms of these parasites occur in adult piscivorous fish, which are the definitive hosts (MORAVEC, 2007). Therefore, the presence of larvae of Cystidicoloides sp.…”

Two cystidicolids (Nematoda, Cystidicolidae) from marine fishes off New Caledonia

“…The presence of egg filaments in A. holocentri is doubtful, because these were illustrated inside the nematode body. Moravec (2007) stated that the eggs should be dissected out from the nematode body to study the presence or absence of egg filaments in spirurines, because, otherwise, the filaments are practically not visible. Even though our efforts to obtain the type specimens of A. holocentri were unsuccessful (apparently, they were lost according to information by Prof. A.V.…”

“…However, the classification system of cystidicolids remains complicated because of uncertainties in the evaluation of generic criteria (e.g., Moravec 2007, Muñoz and George-Nascimento 2007, Brugni et al 2009, where details in the structure of the mouth found by SEM have often been used.…”

“…An important taxonomic feature distinguishing species of Spinitectus is usually the situation of the excretory pore in relation to rings of cuticular spines (Moravec 1979(Moravec , 2007. The location of the excretory pore has not been described for S. beaveri; it is between the 14th and 15th rings of spines in the Spinitectus (P.) sp.…”