Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T09:07:11.665Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Morphological variability and molecular characterization of Mawsonascaris australis (Johnston & Mawson, 1943) (Nematoda: Ascaridoidea: Acanthocheilidae) from the brown guitarfish Rhinobatos schlegelii Müller & Henle (Rhinopristiformes: Rhinobatidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2017

W.-T. Zhao
Affiliation:
College of Life Sciences, Hebei Normal University, 050016 Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, P.R. China
Z. Xu
Affiliation:
Qinzhou University, 535011 Qinzhou, Guangxi Province, P.R. China
L. Li*
Affiliation:
College of Life Sciences, Hebei Normal University, 050016 Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, P.R. China
*
Author for correspondence: L. Li, E-mail: liangliangex369@126.com

Abstract

A rare ascaridoid species, Mawsonascaris australis (Johnston & Mawson, 1943), is reported from the Taiwan Strait for the first time, and the brown guitarfish Rhinobatos schlegelii Müller & Henle (Rhinopristiformes: Rhinobatidae) represents a new fish host. The detailed morphology of M. australis was studied using light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) based on the newly collected specimens. The results revealed some important, but previously unreported or erroneous, morphological features, including the lateral alae starting well posterior to the base of the ventrolateral lips, the presence of one pair of double paracloacal papillae and a single, small precloacal median papilla on the anterior margin of the cloaca. In addition, in order to determine whether the morphometric difference in the relative lengths of the right and left spicules represents intraspecific or interspecific variation, specimens of M. australis were characterized using molecular approaches by sequencing and analysing the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and mitochondrial cox1 genes. The results indicate that this morphometric difference represents intraspecific variability.

Type
Research Paper
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ali, AH, Zhang, L-P, Al-Salim, NK and Li, L (2012) Mawsonascaris parva sp. nov. (Nematoda: Ascaridida) from the Arabian whipray Himantura randalli Last, Manjaji-Matsumoto et Moore (Rajiformes: Dasyatidae) off the coast of Iraq. Acta Parasitologica 57, 367371.Google Scholar
D'Amelio, S, Mathiopoulos, KD, Santos, CP, Pugachev, ON, Webb, SC, Picanco, M and Paggi, L (2000) Genetic markers in ribosomal DNA for the identification of members of the genus Anisakis (Nematoda: Ascaridoidea) defined by polymerase-chain-reaction-based restriction fragment length polymorphism. International Journal for Parasitology 30, 223226.Google Scholar
Fagerholm, HP (1991) Systematic implications of male caudal morphology in ascaridoid nematode parasites. Systematic Parasitology 19, 215228.Google Scholar
Froese, R and Pauly, D (Eds) (2017) FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. Available at http://www.fishbase.org (accessed June 2017).Google Scholar
Johnston, TH and Mawson, PM (1943) Some nematodes from Australian elasmobranchs. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 67, 187190.Google Scholar
Lazarova, SS, Malloch, G, Oliveira, CMG, Hübschen, J and Neilson, R (2006) Ribosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses of Xiphinema americanum-group populations. Journal of Nematology 38, 404410.Google Scholar
Li, L, Xu, Z and Zhang, L-P (2012) A new species of the genus Mawsonascaris Sprent, 1990 (Nematoda: Ascaridida) from Glaucostegus granulatus (Cuvier) (Rajiformes: Rhinobatidae) in the Taiwan Strait, with remarks on the systematic status of Raphidascaroides myliobatum Yin & Zhang, 1983. Journal of Natural History 46, 13071319.Google Scholar
Mozgovoy, AA (1950) [On the anisakid fauna of fishes and reptiles.] Trudy Gel'mintologicheskoy Laboratorii Akademii Nauk SSSR 3, 102–118 (in Russian).Google Scholar
Sprent, JFA (1990) Some ascaridoid nematodes of fishes: Paranisakis and Mawsonascaris n.g. Systematic Parasitology 15, 4163.Google Scholar
Thompson, JD, Higgins, DG and Gibson, TJ (1994) CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Research 22, 46734680.Google Scholar
Yin, W-Z and Zhang, N-X (1983) Notes on some nematodes of marine fishes from Fujian, China. Acta Zootaxonomic Sinica 8, 1116 (in Chinese, with an English summary).Google Scholar