A new species of Malmiana (Oligochaeta: Hirudinida: Piscicolidae) from tidepool fishes in northern California.

Abstract

Malmiana buthi n. sp. is described from the body and fins of the fluffy sculpin, Oligocottus snyderi, the tidepool sculpin, Oligocottus maculosus, and the woolly sculpin, Clinocottus analis, collected from tidepools at Horseshoe Cove on the Bodega Marine Reserve in Sonoma County, California. Prevalence of the leech was 32.6% on live-caught O. snyderi; mean intensity on O. snyderi was 3.3 leeches per fish, with a range from 1 to 7. The leech is not known to exceed 8 mm total length. The body is smooth, lacking papillae, tubercles, or pulsatile vesicles. Two pairs of crescentiform eyes are present on the oral sucker, and 1 pair of punctiform eyes occurs on the second annulus of the trachelosome. The caudal sucker has 14 small punctiform ocelli spaced evenly around the margin. The last 9 segments of the urosome have pairs of large punctiform ocelli both dorsally and ventrally. Body and caudal sucker pigmentation is uniformly reddish brown dorsally and ventrally with segental, lateral, unpigmented areas on both the urosome and trachelosome; pigmentation on the oral sucker is in the form of a cross. There are 5 pairs of testisacs; accessory gland cells on the atrial cornua and vector tissue are absent.