Polystoma lopezromani Combes & Laurent, 1979

Aguiar, Aline, Morais, Drausio Honorio, Firmino Silva, Lidiane A., Anjos, Luciano Alves Dos, Foster, Ottilie Carolina & Silva, Reinaldo José Da, 2021, Biodiversity of anuran endoparasites from a transitional area between the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes in Brazil: new records and remarks, Zootaxa 4948 (1), pp. 1-41 : 17

Polystoma lopezromani Combes & Laurent, 1979

Hosts (prevalence; range): T. typhonius (9/16; 1–15).

Site of infection: urinary bladder.

Stage: adult.

Type host and type locality: T. typhonius (= Phrynohylas venulosa ), Salta, Argentina.

Comments: species of Polystoma , as well as other members from Polystomatidae , are found associated with aquatic tetrapods ( Verneau et al. 2002; Badets & Verneau 2009). Currently, at least 66 species of Polystoma are known and they are distributed in all zoogeographical realms except the Australian Realm ( Du Preez 2013). Although the greatest richness in Africa, with approximately 33 species, the genus Polystoma had origin in South American amphibians ( Du Preez 2013). Until now, from the nine species known in the South American continent, the majority is recorded in Argentine amphibians (e.g. Bufonidae , Leptodactylidae , and Hylidae ) ( Cohen et al. 2013; Campi„o et al. 2014). Our specimens of monogeneans belong to Polystoma lopezromani by a combination of features, such as a small haptor in relation to the total body length and hamules relatively large which sometimes are larger than the diameter of suckers. The digestive tract is the net type with numerous anastomoses except for the pre-haptorial region ( Combes & Laurent 1979). This is the second species of Polystoma recorded in Brazil (the first was P. cuvieri by Santos & Amato (2012)) and the second report of P. lopezromani in this country, after Graça et al. (2017).