Morphometric and molecular data of the two digenean species Lasiotocus lizae Liu, 2002 (Monorchiidae) and Paucivitellosus vietnamensis sp. n. (Bivesiculidae) from mullet fish in Tonkin Bay, Vietnam

Abstract

Adults of Lasiotocus lizae Liu, 2002 (Monorchiidae) were found in the mullet Liza longimanus (Günther) from Tonkin Bay, near Cat Ba Island, Vietnam. In this region, flukes belonging to the genus Paucivitellosus (Bivesiculudae) were found in Liza subviridis (Valenciennes), Liza engeli (Bleeker) and Valamugil seheli (Forskåi). Results of investigations showed that morphological features of L. lizae (like L. glebulentus Overstreet, 1971) do not meet the criteria of the genus Lasiotocus. In addition, L. lizae is highly differentiated from other species of Lasiotocus from which molecular data were obtained, including L. arrhichostoma Searle, Cutmore et Cribb, 2014 and L. typicum (Nicoll, 1912). Phylogenetic analyses revealed that L. lizae differs considerably from other species of the genus Lasiotocus presented in the GenBank database. We have identified a new species of the genus Paucivitellosus - P. vietnamensis sp. n. - from L. subviridis, which differs from P. fragilis Coil, Reid et Kuntz, 1965 by metrical and molecular (18S rRNA) data, and from P. hanumanthai Mani, 1989 by metric features. Our results also show considerable molecular differentiation between P. vietnamensis sp. n. and Paucivitellosus spp. recovered from L. engeli and V. seheli in Vietnam.