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A new freshwater leech species from Asian Swamp Eel stocks in China

  • Fish Parasitology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Discoveries of new Hemiclepsis species (Hirudinea: Glossiphoniidae) in East and Southeast Asia were expected. A peculiar freshwater leech was found on the body surface of Asian Swamp Eel Monopterus albus (Synbranchiformes: Synbranchidae) in Jingzhou, Hubei Province, China. Here, we describe this leech species as Hemiclepsis yangtzenensis sp. nov. It could be distinguished from other congeners based on a combination of morphological features such as very small size, translucent body with dense green reticulate markings throughout dorsum, very large posterior sucker with a characteristic reticulate pattern, and two pairs of well-developed drop-like eyespots. It also represents a phylogenetic lineage that is distant from other members of the genus based on the COI and 18S rRNA sequences. This leech species seems to be a specialized fish parasite that could negatively affect farming and wild stocks of Asian Swamp Eel in China.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. This study was partly supported by the China Agriculture Research System (project No. CARS-46), Technical Innovation Project of Hubei Province (project No. 2019ABA086), and Engineering Research Center for Ecology and Agriculture of Wetland, Ministry of Education, Hubei Province, China (project No. KFT201902). I.N.B., M.Y.G, and A.V.K. were supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (project No. 0409-2019-0041). We would also express our sincere gratitude to Xi Wang and Huanshan Wang for their help in storing and managing the type series of the new species in MHBS, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center of Ecology and Agricultural Use of Wetland, Ministry of Education, Yangtze University, Jingmi Road, Jingzhou, 434025, Hubei Province, China

    Zhiwei Xu, Chaodong Yang, Hanwen Yuan & Daiqin Yang

  2. N. Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Northern Dvina Emb. 23, 163000, Arkhangelsk, Russia

    Mikhail Y. Gofarov, Tatyana A. Eliseeva, Alexander V. Kondakov & Ivan N. Bolotov

Authors
  1. Zhiwei Xu
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  2. Chaodong Yang
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  3. Mikhail Y. Gofarov
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  4. Tatyana A. Eliseeva
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  5. Alexander V. Kondakov
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  6. Hanwen Yuan
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  7. Ivan N. Bolotov
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  8. Daiqin Yang
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Correspondence to Hanwen Yuan, Ivan N. Bolotov or Daiqin Yang.

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Xu, Z., Yang, C., Gofarov, M.Y. et al. A new freshwater leech species from Asian Swamp Eel stocks in China. Parasitol Res 120, 2769–2778 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-021-07228-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-021-07228-2

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