Euglenozoa, Cavalier-Smith, 1981

Smit, Nico J., Malherbe, Wynand & Hadfield, Kerry A., 2017, Alien freshwater fish parasites from South Africa: Diversity, distribution, status and the way forward, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 6 (3), pp. 386-401 : 394

3.1. Phylum Euglenozoa

3.1.1. Ichthyobodo necator

The ectoparasitic flagellate I. necator has been implicated in disease and mortality of cultured fish globally and is, amongst other things, probably the major cause of death of cultured salmonid fry in Scottish fish farms ( Robertson, 1985). In South Africa, specimens identified as I. necator have been reported in the early 1980s from three native cyprinids and the alien C. carpio . These specimens were collected from impoundments in two rivers in the Limpopo Province ( Paperna and Van As, 1983; Van As and Basson, 1984), and an aquaculture facility and a river (Kouga River) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa (Van As and Basson, 1984) ( Fig. 2C ). More recently, Ichthyobodo Pinto, 1928 isolates collected from pondreared koi-carp C. carpio fry from South Africa (specific locality not known) were included in a molecular study by Todal et al. (2004) that aimed to test previous suggestions that I. necator comprises a complex of species. Todal et al. (2004) concluded that there were at least eight strains or species from the 14 isolates tested. The South African isolate showed the highest sequence similarity with the isolate from C. auratus collected in Singapore and grouped together with isolates from an Apistogramma sp. ( Brazil) and a Morone Mitchill, 1814 hybrid ( USA) ( Todal et al., 2004). This molecular evidence suggests that the Ichthyobodo isolate from C. carpio in South Africa can be considered as co-introduced. However, the I. necator identified from native fishes needs to be molecular characterised in order to determine whether they are co-invaders spilled over from C. carpio or are a native South African sibling species.

Figures

Fig. 2. Maps indicating the South African distribution records for (A) Lernaea cyprinacea Linnaeus,1758; (B) Argulus japonicus Thiele, 1900; (C) Ichthyobodo necator Henneguy, 1883 (needs molecular confirmation); (D) Trichodina acuta Lom,1961, Trichodina mutabilis Kazubski and Migala,1968, Trichodina reticulata Hirschmann and Partsch,1955, and Trichodina uniforma Van As and Basson, 1989.