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Morphological and molecular evidence for a new species of the genus Raphidascaris (Nematoda: Anisakidae) from marine fishes from the South China Sea

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Abstract

A new anisakid nematode, Raphidascaris (Ichthyascaris) longispicula sp. nov., is described from the intestine and stomach of the marine fish Uroconger lepturus (Richardson) (Anguilliformes: Congridae) from the South China Sea (Guangdong and Hainan Province, respectively). The new species differs from all congeners in the subgenus Ichthyascaris by the short ventricular appendix (0.36–0.49 mm long), the number and arrangement of caudal papillae (25–28 pairs of preanal, 1–2 pairs of paranal, and 6–8 pairs of postanal), and the very long spicules (1.13–1.32 mm long, representing 9.34–10.3% of body length). The sequences of the internal transcribed spacer of ribosomal DNA of R. (I.) longispicula sp. nov. are analyzed and compared with the closely related nematode sequences. Molecular analyses seem to support the validity of this new nematode species based on morphological observation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Professor Ruiyong An (College of Life Sciences, Hebei Normal University) for identifying the fishes. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC-30970318, 31101615) and a grant (No. L2010B13) from the Hebei Normal University to Dr. Liang Li.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Science, Hebei Normal University, 113 Yuhua East Rd., Yuhua District, 050016, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Li, Yuan-Yuan Liu & Lu-Ping Zhang

  2. Botou Vocational College, 062150, Botou, Hebei Province, People’s Republic of China

    Bao-Chen Liu

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  1. Liang Li
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  2. Yuan-Yuan Liu
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  3. Bao-Chen Liu
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  4. Lu-Ping Zhang
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Correspondence to Lu-Ping Zhang.

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Li, L., Liu, YY., Liu, BC. et al. Morphological and molecular evidence for a new species of the genus Raphidascaris (Nematoda: Anisakidae) from marine fishes from the South China Sea. Parasitol Res 110, 1473–1479 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2650-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2650-7

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