Cymothoa frontalis, a cymothoid isopod parasitizing the belonid fish Strongylura strongylura from the Malabar Coast (Kerala, India): redescription, description, prevalence and life cycle

摘要

Background Cymothoa frontalis Milne Edward, 1840 is a very poorly described cymothoid, notwithstanding the previous redescription of the female. Pertinently, to date, the host of C. frontalis has not been identified with adequate precision. Most of the descriptions of cymothoids carried out hitherto were based primarily on females, but practically ignoring other life cycle stages. The present paper redescribes the female and describes other life cycle stages of the species C. frontalis to get better precision in their identification.