Ancyrocephalus felis Hargis, 1955

Mendoza-Franco, Edgar F., Tun, Mariela del Carmen Rosado, Anchevida, Allan de Jesus Duarte & Rodriguez, Rodolfo E. del Rio, 2018, Morphological and molecular (28 S rRNA) data of monogeneans (Platyhelminthes) infecting the gill lamellae of marine fishes in the Campeche Bank, southwest Gulf of Mexico, ZooKeys 783, pp. 125-161 : 125

Ancyrocephalus felis Hargis, 1955

Ancyrocephalus felis Hargis, 1955a: 186-187, figs 28-33; Yamaguti 1963: 66 (transferred to Haliotrema ); Paperna 1977: redescribed and transferred to Neotetraonchus ; Kritsky et al. 2009a: 9-12, figs 36-44 (redescribed).

Type host.

Ariopsis felis

Present study.

A. felis

Locality/prevalence, mean abundance and intensity range.

San Francisco: 1 fish (mean TL 33.7 cm; range 25-37) infected of 11 examined (9 %); abundance, 0.09; intensity of infection, 1 worm. Seyba Playa: 14 fish (TL 32.3; 29-36.5) infected of 27 examined (52%); abundance, 2; intensity of infection, 2-4; Champoton: 8 fish (TL 34.2; 27.5-46) infected of 45 examined (17.8%); abundance, 1; intensity of infection, 1-3.

Supplementary observations

(measurements based on four specimens). Body 2,837 (2,550-3,250; 4) long; greatest width 432 (415-432; 3). MCO 332 (310-368; 4) long. Haptor 197 (155-237; 3) wide. Ventral anchor 41 (40-42; 7) long. Dorsal anchor 35 (35-36; 4) long. Ventral bar 38-48 long. Dorsal bar 35. Hook pair 7, 55 long.

Comments.

This species was originally described as Ancyrocephalus felis on G. felis (now A. felis ) from Alligator Harbor, Franklin County, Florida ( Hargis 1955a). Yamaguti (1963) transferred this monogenean species to Haliotrema as H. felis based on the original description and his observations of the type specimens. Paperna (1977) transferred it to Neotetraonchus as N. felis and added a character within genus, the presence of an accessory piece in the copulatory complex and the onchium (accessory bar) in the haptor (see Kritsky et al. 2009a). Recently, N. felis was redescribed based on examination of its type specimen and other new specimens collected on A. felis from the Gulf of Mexico off Mississippi and the Yucatan Peninsula ( Kritsky et al. 2009a).

Present specimens are clearly conspecific with those of N. felis from A. felis as redescribed by these latter authors. All these specimens have an elongate tube of the MCO directed posteriorly and reaching level of anterior end of germarium. Currently, N. felis has been reported on A. felis from Dauphin Island, Alabama coast, Gulf of Mexico (Paperna, 1977); West Ship Island, northern Gulf of Mexico off Mississippi, USA; Gulf of Mexico off Telchac Puerto and Port of Celestun, Yucatan, Mexico ( Kritsky et al. 2009a). Present study also provided the first molecular data of N. felis by amplifying an 772 bp fragment of the 28S rRNA gene (D1-D3). There is one sequence of an individual specimen of N. felis included into the analyses that revealed that this species forms a sister lineage to that containing H. bagre occurring on other ariids, B. marinus and A. felis (see Figure 1).

Specimens deposited.

Four reference specimens in the CNHE (10616). Another slide containing a haptor of a specimen of N. felis used to amplify its DNA is deposited in the CNHE (10801).

Representative DNA sequence.

GenBank accession number MG586868.