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The Proteocephalus species-aggregate (Cestoda) in cyprinoids, pike, eel, smelt and cavefish of the Nearctic region (North America): diversity, host associations and distribution

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Abstract

Tapeworms (Cestoda) of the Proteocephalus-species aggregate from cyprinoids, pike, eel, smelt and cavefish in the Nearctic region (North America) are reviewed, based on a critical examination of newly collected and museum specimens. For some species neither new nor museum specimens were available and only literature data were used for these taxa. Two species occur in North American cyprinoids: (i) Nearctic Proteocephalus buplanensis Mayes, 1976 in Semotilus atromaculatus (Mitchill) in the upper Mississippi River and Hudson Bay drainage basins, and (ii) Holarctic P. torulosus (Batsch, 1786) (syns. P. ptychocheilus Faust, 1919; P. cobraeformis Haderlie, 1953; and Ophiotaenia critica Mpoame & Landers, 1981, new synonym), which occurs in Ptychocheilus spp. and other leuciscids in the western part of North America. Proteocephalus pinguis La Rue, 1911 is a specific parasite of pike (Esox spp.), which is briefly redescribed here to establish its diagnostic morphological characteristics because the original description was based on a mixture of at least two species. In addition to P. pinguis, pike serve as postyclic hosts of several species of the Proteocephalus-aggregate typical of other fish, such as bass, perch and whitefish, namely P. fluviatilis Bangham, 1925, P. pearsei La Rue, 1919 and P. longicollis (Zeder, 1800). Cavefish (Amblyopsidae) in North America harbour two endemic species, P. chologasteri Whittaker & Hill, 1968 from Chologaster agassizii Putman and P. poulsoni Whittaker & Zober, 1978 from Amblyopsis spelaea DeKay, which have never been found since their original description and their validity should be confirmed based on new collections and molecular data. Two other species of the Proteocephalus–aggregate, P. macrocephalus (Creplin, 1825), a parasite of eels (Anguilla spp.), and P. tetrastomus (Rudolphi, 1810) from smelt (Osmeridae), have circumboreal (Holarctic) distribution. Molecular data are available only for three of the seven species treated herein, but they do not form a monophyletic group.

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Acknowledgements

Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful suggestions. This study was supported by the Fulbright Commission (Senior Fellowship to TS in 2017), Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (project No. LTAUSA18010) and the Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre (institutional support RVO 60077344). Technical assistance of Martina Borovková and Blanka Škoríková of the Institute of Parasitology, BC CAS, České Budějovice is much appreciated. Thanks are also due to Anna Phillips and staff of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., and to Scott Gardner and Skip Sterner, H. W. Manter Laboratory, Lincoln, Nebraska, for enabling TS to study type and voucher specimens of North American species of Proteocephalus. TS and AC thank Chris McAllister, Eastern Oklahoma State College, U.S.A. for organising and facilitating collections in Oklahoma, and Patrick Nelson for donating his slides of P. buplanensis for this study. AC thanks Patrick Nelson, North South Consultants and Bill Franzin, DFO Freshwater Institute, Winnipeg, Canada, for help with sampling creek chub in Manitoba, and Richard Sanderson, Stantec, Green Bay – De Pere, U.S.A. and Scott Hansen, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for northern pike samples from Wisconsin, U.S.A. AC also acknowledges funding and other support from St. Norbert College, including Faculty Development grants, and FR acknowledges funding support from the State University of New York College at Oneonta Foundation.

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  1. Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Scholz

  2. Division of Natural Sciences, St. Norbert College, 100 Grant Street, De Pere, Wisconsin, 54115, USA

    Anindo Choudhury

  3. Biology Department, State University of New York, College at Oneonta, Oneonta, New York, 13820, USA

    Florian Reyda

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  1. Tomáš Scholz
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Correspondence to Tomáš Scholz.

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Scholz, T., Choudhury, A. & Reyda, F. The Proteocephalus species-aggregate (Cestoda) in cyprinoids, pike, eel, smelt and cavefish of the Nearctic region (North America): diversity, host associations and distribution. Syst Parasitol 98, 255–275 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-021-09975-3

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