Abstract
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 martini sp. 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. martini sp. n. increases the total number of valid species of Phoreiobothrium to 20 worldwide. Furthermore, P. martini sp. 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. martini sp. n. could be used as sentinel species for the accurate identification, separation and diagnosis of commonly misidentified shark species.
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The data used to generate the results in the paper are available and can be accessed by contacting the corresponding author. Species registration details can be accessed by the ZooBank link provided in the taxonomic summary.
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Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to the members of the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board for their collaboration and assistance in the field. We would also like to thank the Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University (NWU) for the use of field equipment and laboratory facilities. Additional thanks go to our colleague Geraldine Oosthuizen from the NWU-Water Research Group who assisted with the collection of samples. This is contribution 716 from the NWU-Water Research Group.
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This work was supported by both a Foundational Biodiversity Information Programme of the National Research Foundation (FBIP-NRF) of South Africa master’s bursary of LVDS (UID 128316), as well as a NWU postdoctoral fellowship of BCS. Opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this paper are that of the authors, and the NRF accept no liability whatsoever in this regard.
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Linda Van Der Spuy wrote the primary manuscript text, whilst all authors contributed equally to conceptualization of the study and editing and reviewing of the final manuscript.
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Ethical approval for this project was received from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences’ Ethics Committee (FNASREC) of the North-West University with ethics number NWU-01655-20-A9. Permits for the collection and possession of sharks for the purpose of research were issued by the South African Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (permit no. RES2020/20 issued to the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board).
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Van Der Spuy, L., Smit, N.J., Naidoo, K. et al. A new species of Phoreiobothrium Linton, 1889 (Cestoda: Onchoproteocephalidea) from the spinner shark, Carcharhinus brevipinna (Valenciennes) off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Syst Parasitol 100, 149–158 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-022-10077-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-022-10077-x