Discovery of a new species ofStafford, 1904 (Digenea: Apocreadiidae) from the stripped mojarra,in a coastal lagoon of the Gulf of Mexico.

Abstract

To date, 34 species of the genus(Apocreadiidae) have been described; five of them in Mexican fresh or brackish water fish, whereas five have been reported as parasites of members of the fish family Gerreidae. While sampling wildlife vertebrates during a field course of parasitology at the Los Tuxtlas Biological Station (Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) in Veracruz, specimens of digeneans were collected from the intestine of the stripped mojarra,in Sontecomapan Lagoon. Specimens were studied morphologically and molecularly, and we discovered that they represented a new species ofThe new species is morphologically like the other four congeners in having three pairs of well-developed oral papillae on the oral sucker:;;; and. Here, we describe the newly discovered species, increasing our understanding about the parasite diversity of brackish water fishes of Mexico.