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Philometra longa n. sp. (Nematoda: Philometridae), a new parasite from the abdominal cavity of the eastern sea garfish Hyporhamphus australis (Hemiramphidae, Beloniformes) off Australia

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Abstract

A new nematode species, Philometra longa n. sp. (Philometridae), is described from male and female specimens collected from the body cavity of the marine fish, Hyporhamphus australis (Steindachner) (Hemirhamphidae, Beloniformes) from off the south-eastern coast of Australia. Based on examination by light and scanning electron microscopy, the new species differs from those parasitising other beloniform hosts mainly in the body length (4.69 mm), the length of spicules (141 µm) and the structure of the caudal end and the distal tip of gubernaculum in the male, and in the conspicuously long body (455–560 mm) of the gravid female. Philometra longa n. sp. is the first species of philometrids described from fishes of the family Hemiramphidae. It is the 26th nominal species of philometrids and the 19th species of Philometra so far recorded from Australian marine and brackish waters. Re-examined museum specimens of Philometra sp. from Hyporhamphus melanochir (Valenciennes) off Tasmania, as well as those previously reported from the same host species off the Australian coast, were found to be identical with P. longa sp. n.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the commercial fisher for the collection and shipping of the fish specimens. The authors are deeply indebted to Leslie Chisholm for the loan of some Philometra specimens from the collections of the South Australian Museum, Adelaide.

Thanks are also due to the Laboratory of Electron Microscopy, Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, institution supported by the MEYS CR (LM2015062 Czech-BioImaging) and ERDF (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001775), for their support with obtaining scientific data presented in this paper, and to Blanka Škoríková of the same Institute for help with the illustrations.

Funding

This study was partly supported by the institutional support of the Institute of Parasitology, BC AS CR (RVO: 60077344).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    František Moravec

  2. School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2678, Australia

    Diane P. Barton

  3. School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2678, Australia

    Shokoofeh Shamsi

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  1. František Moravec
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  2. Diane P. Barton
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Correspondence to František Moravec.

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This article was registered in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature (ZooBank) as: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FCCC4D10-69A0-4B7A-ACA4-C3AC27DDF05E. This article was published as an Online First article on the online publication date shown on this paper. The article should be cited by using the doi number. This is the Version of Record.

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Moravec, F., Barton, D.P. & Shamsi, S. Philometra longa n. sp. (Nematoda: Philometridae), a new parasite from the abdominal cavity of the eastern sea garfish Hyporhamphus australis (Hemiramphidae, Beloniformes) off Australia. Syst Parasitol 98, 167–175 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-021-09969-1

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