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The examination of eight spotted skates, Raja straeleni Poll, resulted in the discovery of four new species of Acanthobothrium van Beneden, 1849, namely A. microhabentes sp. n., A. microtenuis sp. n., A. crassus sp. n., and A. dolichocollum sp. n., located off the Western Cape of South Africa. With a total of over 200 valid species of Acanthobothri...
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The extreme sparsity of collection efforts in many parts of the word, including southern Africa, leaves a vast hidden diversity of marine cestode species, such as species of Phoreiobothrium . The investigation of a common South African coastal-pelagic species, the spinner shark Carcharhinus brevipinna (Valenciennes) resulted in the discovery of a n...
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... Its members principally parasitize batoids and sharks (Caira and Jensen 2017). Recent descriptions include 23 species, eleven from the greater Atlantic Ocean (Franzese and Ivanov 2018;Rodríguez-Ibarra et al. 2018;Franzese and Ivanov 2020;Van Der Spuy et al. 2020, 2022, six from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman in the northwest Indian Ocean (Maleki et al. 2018(Maleki et al. , 2019 and six from the Pacific Ocean (Zaragoza-Tapia et al. 2019, 2020bGallagher and Caira 2020). Of the 211 species, 17 species have been described from Mexican waters and three species known from other localities have been reported off México. ...
... Many of them have been assigned to the genus Acanthobothrium, which currently is represented world-wide by 213 nominal species. Of these, 25 have been recently described: 13 from the Atlantic Ivanov 2018, 2020;Rodríguez-Ibarra et al. 2018;Van Der Spuy et al. 2020;Van Der Spuy et al. 2022; this study), six from the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and Indic Ocean (Maleki et al. 2018(Maleki et al. , 2019, and six from the Pacific Ocean (Zaragoza-Tapia et al. 2019, 2020bGallagher and Caira 2020). Table 2 includes the most recently-described species as a complement to the information presented by Zaragoza-Tapia et al. (2020a). ...
Eight specimens of Urobatis jamaicensis were collected from four localities of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, of which four specimens were infected with cestodes of two new species of Acanthobothrium . Acanthobothrium garciaprietoi sp. nov. differs from congeners by a combination of characters including the size of the scolex and bothridia, length of the cephalic peduncle, length of the axial and abaxial prongs and total length of the abaxial prongs of the hooks, size of the cirrus sac and testes in mature proglottids, and the total number of proglottids. The most prominent characteristic distinguishing A. pulidofloresae sp. nov. from other species of the Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea/Gulf of Mexico is the form of the scolex, which has the “clover leaf” configuration. In addition, it can be distinguished by the total length of the worm, total number of proglottids, small accessory suckers, the form of the bothridia, length of the axial and abaxial prongs and total abaxial prong length of hooks, and the number of testes. According to the current category scheme, A. garciaprietoi sp. nov. and A. pulidofloresae sp. nov. , belong to categories 1 and 5, respectively.
... Given that the definitive hosts of the 19 currently accepted species of Phoreiobothrium only represent 25 % (13/52) of recognised carcharhinid and 66 % (6/ 9) of sphyrnid shark species (Froese & Pauly, 2021;Caira et al., 2021), several cestode species await scientific discovery. There are also sparse collection efforts of elasmobranch hosts for parasitic research in many parts of the world, including South Africa (Van Der Spuy et al., 2020;2022;Schaeffner & Smit, 2019). This situation is further impeded by the incorrect identification of elasmobranch hosts, which may cause complications regarding the accuracy of reported hostparasite interactions. ...
... Images of characteristic body structures were taken, from which measurements were obtained, using the image analysis software Image Pro Express (Nikon, Japan). The morphological characterisation of the specimens follows Van Der Spuy et al. (2020). Measurements of internal organs, hooks and body structures follows . ...
... The biogeographical realm including the ocean basins of South Africa still holds the potential of an immense hidden cestode diversity (Van Der Spuy et al., 2020;2022), with a large proportion of the regional cestode fauna awaiting scientific discovery. This is not only supported by the present study but also by the fact that studies by Van Der Spuy et al. (2020;2022) and Oosthuizen et al. (2021) have reported and described new species from this region within the last two years, adding to the diversity of cestodes from this region and further highlighting southern Africa as a neglected biogeographic area for marine parasites with the potential of a large hidden diversity. ...
The extreme sparsity of collection efforts in many parts of the word, including southern Africa, leaves a vast hidden diversity of marine cestode species, such as species of Phoreiobothrium. The examination of a common South African coastal-pelagic shark species, Carcharhinus brevipinna (Valenciennes), resulted in the discovery of a new species of Phoreiobothrium Linton, 1889. Phoreiobothrium martinisp. n. is undoubtedly different from all other congeners in several morphological characteristics, however, it is most easily distinguished from other species by its total length, the size of its hooks, and the number of post vaginal testes. The addition of P. martinisp. n. increases the total number of valid species of Phoreiobothrium to 20 worldwide. Furthermore, P. martinisp. n. marks the description of representatives of only the second onchoproteocephalidean genus from southern Africa, therefore expanding the generic biogeographical representation and introducing new host associations. Apart from the description of this new species of cestode, the discovery of additional species of Phoreiobothrium will be beneficial regarding future ecological investigations. With the high degree of host-specificity found amongst species of Phoreiobothrium, species such as P. martinisp. n. could be used as sentinel species for the accurate identification, separation and diagnosis of commonly misidentified shark species.
... The biogeographical realm including the ocean basins of South Africa still holds the potential of an immense hidden cestode diversity (Van Der Spuy et al. 2020; 2022), with a large proportion of the regional cestode fauna awaiting scienti c discovery. This is not only supported by the present study but also by the fact that studies by Van Der Spuy et al. (2020; and Oosthuizen et al. (2021) have reported and described new species from this region within the last two years, adding to the diversity of cestodes from this region and further highlighting southern Africa as a neglected biogeographic area for marine parasites with the potential of a large hidden diversity. Albeit a limited sample size, the study found all three sharks sampled, infected with the new cestode species described herein, suggesting that P. martini n. sp. is very prevalent in C. brevipinna in South African waters. ...
The extreme sparsity of collection efforts in many parts of the word, including southern Africa, leaves a vast hidden diversity of marine cestode species, such as species of Phoreiobothrium . The investigation of a common South African coastal-pelagic species, the spinner shark Carcharhinus brevipinna (Valenciennes) resulted in the discovery of a new species of Phoreiobothrium Linton, 1889. Phoreiobothrium martini n. sp. is undoubtedly different from all other congeners in several morphological characteristics, however, it is most easily distinguished from other species by the size of its hooks. Furthermore, this species is peculiar in the sense of its microthrix pattern. It only possesses filitriches on its proximal bothridial surface. Additionally, P. martini n. sp. also displays a scarcity of gladiate spinitriches on its cephalic peduncle. This has not been recorded in any other congener within this genus and could resemble a new, generic characteristic. The addition of P. martini n. sp. increases the total number of valid species of Phoreiobothrium to 18 worldwide. Furthermore, P. martini n. sp. marks the description of representatives of only the second onchoproteocephalidean genus from southern Africa, therefore expanding the generic biogeographical representation and introducing new host associations. Apart from the description of this new species of cestode, the discovery of P. martini n. sp. as well as additional species of Phoreiobothrium is beneficial regarding future ecological investigations. With the high degree of host-specificity found amongst species of Phoreiobothrium , species such as P. martini n. sp. could be used as sentinel species for the accurate identification, separation and diagnosis of commonly misidentified shark species, such as C. brevipinna and C. limbatus (Valenciennes).
... Helminths such as cestodes have co-evolved with their elasmobranch hosts for millions of years (see for instance Dentzien-Dias et al., 2013), thereby creating unique and very intimate host-parasite interrelationships Jensen, 2001, 2014). Acanthobothrium van Beneden, 1850 (Cestoda: Onchoproteocephalidea II, sensu Caira and Jensen, 2017) is reported to be the most species-rich tapeworm genus known to infect elasmobranchs (Maleki et al., 2015;Caira and Jensen, 2017), currently consisting of 207 valid species (Caira and Jensen, 2017;Zaragoza-Tapia et al., 2019, 2020bVan Der Spuy et al., 2020). Albeit already being an extremely diverse genus, Caira and Jensen (2017) state that an estimated 800 additional species of Acanthobothrium await future discovery. ...
... represents the third species of Acanthobothrium and the seventh cestode record from this host. In southern Africa, only four species of Acanthobothrium are currently known (Van Der Spuy et al., 2020). Including A. umbungus n. sp., it not only increases the number of species of this genus in the Eastern South Atlantic Ocean but also marks southern Africa as an understudied biogeographical region with the potential of an immense hidden parasite diversity. ...
... From the remaining 16 species of Acanthobothrium known to bear this feature, only six are identified as category 2 species, namely A. bobconniorum, A. crassus, A. dolichocollum, A. microhabentes, A. microtenuis, and A. popi. Acanthobothrium microhabentes and A. microtenuis were only recently described from the same biogeographical region by Van Der Spuy et al. (2020). However, both species differ from A. ulondolozus n. sp. in smaller metrical features (i.e. total length, scolex length, scolex width, bothridium width, lateral hooks, medial hooks, cephalic peduncle width, cirrus-sac length, poral and aporal ovarian length, ovarian width; see Van Der Spuy et al., 2020), while A. bobconniorum, A. crassus, A. dolichocollum and A. popi differ from A. ulondolozus n. sp. in the following features: smaller lateral hooks (A <60 μm vs 60-75 μm, B < 120 μm vs 154-160 μm, C < 100 μm vs 131-144 μm, D < 175 μm vs 212-220 μm, respectively), smaller medial hooks (A' <60 μm vs 62-73 μm, B' <119 μm vs 144-165 μm, C' <108 μm vs 121-144 μm, D' <175 μm vs 203-211 μm, respectively), a shorter terminal proglottid (<1320 μm vs 1663-2134 μm, respectively), a narrower terminal proglottid (<260 μm vs 284-356 μm, respectively), a shorter cirrus-sac (<152 μm vs 171-232 μm, respectively) and smaller testes (<50 μm vs 50-61 μm, respectively). ...
The white skate, Rostroraja alba (Lacépède), is listed as an endangered species, the second-highest category before being declared extinct in the wild, in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. This species is heavily affected by anthropogenic impacts such as capture induced stress by overfishing and by-catch, habitat degradation and pollution that caused a drastic decline in populations in recent years. As part of a larger study on elasmobranch affiliates in southern Africa, two specimens of R. alba were screened. Three species of the tapeworm genus Acanthobothrium van Beneden, 1849 (Cestoda: Onchoproteocephalidea) were discovered. Application of Ghoshroy and Caira's classification system facilitated the differentiation of congeners through a combination of specific morphological characteristics. As a consequence, three species new to science are described herein, namely Acanthobothrium umbungus n. sp., Acanthobothrium usengozinius n. sp., and Acanthobothrium ulondolozus n. sp. In light of these new discoveries from an endangered host, it is apparent to address the conservation status of its affiliate species, that co-evolved with their elasmobranch hosts for millions of years, thereby creating unique and intimate host-parasite interrelationships. Currently, altering environmental conditions caused by anthropogenic pressures have direct impacts on this host-parasite system with increasing risks of extinction. As merely 9% of elasmobranchs in South African waters have been examined for endohelminths and other affiliate taxa, extensive studies on these organisms and their hosts implementing multisource approaches are needed. This will provide a better understanding on the intimate nature of host-parasite systems that may lead to new prospects in conservation science and the preservation of threatened host species, such as R. alba, together with their unique fauna of affiliate species.
... However, this is not the case of the Mediterranean basin, where most of the information is dated and scattered in old opportunistic studies (https://shark-references.com/s pecies/parasite-hosts-list/A). Among cestodes, Acanthobothrium Blanchard, 1848 is the most speciose genus in the order Onchoproteocephalidea Caira and Jensen, 2017), which currently comprise 208 valid species parasitizing the intestine of elasmobranch fishes as adults (Franzese and Ivanov, 2020;Gallagher and Caira, 2020;Zaragoza-Tapia et al., 2020;Van Der Spuy et al., 2020). In addition, while recent studies suggested that members of Acanthobothrium are highly host-specific (Jensen and Bullard, 2010;Caira andJensen, 2001, 2014), the type species of the genus, Acanthobothrium coronatum (Rudolphi, 1819) Blanchard, 1848, seems to be a generalist parasite with no specific host preference, having been reported from a wide range of elasmobranch hosts. ...
Acanthobothrium is the most speciose genus of onchoproteocephalidean cestodes, whose adults parasitize the intestine of elasmobranch fishes. Acanthobothrium coronatum, the type species of the genus described from Mediterranean elasmobranchs, remains a little known parasite, with the most recent reports dating back to the fifties. We hereby investigate host-specificity and redescribe A. coronatum from the same locality of its original description by using light and scanning electron microscopy approaches. Moreover, molecular and phylogenetic data inferred from the analysis of the 28S rDNA gene are reported for the first time. Out of the nine elasmobranch species examined from Gulf of Naples, we only detected A. coronatum in the intestine of Scyliorhinus stellaris, with infection patterns that supports evident host-specificity for this shark species. The genetic characterization of 28S rDNA showed 99.8–100% similarity with larvae previously found in Octopus vulgaris from the same area investigated here. Conspecificity between the present material and the larvae found in the octopus was also confirmed by the tree topology. The host-parasite phylogeny is discussed, even if additional molecular data are needed to clarify potential host-parasite patterns. Notwithstanding this limitation, this is the first molecular study revealing conspecificity between an adult Acanthobothrium species from a shark and the larvae found in an intermediate/paratenic host, shedding light on the transmission pathway of A. coronatum in S. stellaris. Finally, the taxonomic, molecular, and phylogenetic data presented here allow a better characterization of a neglected parasite.
