New Report of Adults of Neobothriocephalus aspinosus (Cestoda: Bothriocephalidea) in Littoral Fishes of Northern Chile

摘要

Introduction: Cestodes belonging to the order Bothriocephalidea are common parasites of marine fishes. This orderwas recently proposed based on a critical examination of literature, as well as morphological and molecularanalyses, including four families: Bothriocephalidae, Echinophallidae, Philobythiidae, Triaenophoridae (Kuchtaet al., 2008).In the Pacific Ocean, the genus Neobothriocephalus (Echinophalidae) is commonly found in the pelagicfish of genus Seriolella, where they reach the adult stage. In the Peruvian coast, Neobothriocephalus aspinosushas been reported in Seriolella violacea with 100% prevalence (Iannacone, 2003), while in the Chilean coast,this species has been reported in Seriolella violacea, and also in demersal fish species: Hippoglosina macrops,Paralichthys microps and Paralichthys adpersus (Munoz & Olmos, 2008). In recent sampling performed in thenorthern coast of Chile, for the first time, were found adult specimens of this tapeworm in littoral fishes:Sebastes oculatus, Paralabrax humeralis, Labrisomus philippi and also in pelagic species, Seriola lalandi.Indeed, molecular techniques are useful for the detection of genetic differences between species orpopulations that cannot be made using morphological analysis (Mattiucci & Nascetti, 2006). The informationresulting from the analysis of the 18S rDNA and 28S rDNA genes has been used in cestodes to determinephylogenetic relationship between taxa (Brabec et al., 2006). The aim of this study was to elucidate the specificidentity of the cestodes found by morphological characters, and by means of molecular markers