Molecular species delimitation of marine trematodes over wide geographical ranges: spp. (Digenea: Haplosplanchnidae) in needlefishes (Belonidae) from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

Geographical distribution plays a major role in our understanding of marine biodiversity. Some marine fish trematodes have been shown to have highly restricted geographical distributions, while some are known to occur over very wide ranges; however, very few of these wide distributions have been demonstrated genetically. Here, we analyse species of the genus (Haplosplanchnidae) parasitizing beloniforms from the tropical west Pacific, the eastern Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico (GoM).

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

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 of The new species is morphologically like the other four congeners in having three pairs of well-developed oral papillae on the oral sucker: ; ; ; and .