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Systematics, phylogeny and biogeography
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Phylogenetic analysis and diversity of peculiar new lecanicephalidean tapeworms (Eniochobothriidae) from cownose rays across the globe

K. Jensen https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0294-8471 A * and J. N. Caira https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9597-6978 B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and the Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, 1200 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.

B Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, 75 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT 06269-3043, USA.

* Correspondence to: jensen@ku.edu

Handling Editor: Katrine Worsaae

Invertebrate Systematics 36(10) 879-909 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS22018
Submitted: 31 March 2022  Accepted: 18 August 2022   Published: 28 September 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing.

Abstract

The three members of the lecanicephalidean tapeworm family Eniochobothriidae are unusual among tapeworms in that they lack a vagina and possess a series of expanded proglottids forming a trough at the anterior end of their body. They exclusively parasitise cownose rays of the genus Rhinoptera (Myliobatiformes: Rhinopteridae). New collections from six of the nine known species of cownose rays from the waters off Australia, Mexico, Mozambique, Senegal, Taiwan and the United States (off Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina) yielded eight new species and a new genus of eniochobothriids. Here we erect Amiculucestus, gen. nov. and describe six of the eight new species – four in the new genus and two in Eniochobothrium – expanding the number of genera in the family to two and the number of described species in the family to nine. Morphological work was based on light and scanning electron microscopy. The tree resulting from a maximum likelihood analysis of sequence data for the D1–D3 region of the 28S rDNA gene for 11 species of eniochobothriids supports the reciprocal monophyly of both genera. The mode of attachment to the mucosal surface of the spiral intestine of the host was investigated using histological sections of worms in situ. These cestodes appear to use the anterior trough-like portion of their body, which consists of an unusual series of barren proglottids, rather than their scolex, to attach to the mucosal surface. Based on our new collections, we estimate that the total number of eniochobothriids across the globe does not exceed 27 species.

ZooBank LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0740EC72‐AC3F‐43AA‐BD41‐B9820BA9D0CE

Keywords: biodiversity, morphology, nuclear DNA, parasitology, phylogeny, Platyhelminthes, systematics, taxonomy.


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