Folia Parasitologica 56[1] 21-28 (2009) | DOI: 10.14411/fp.2009.004

Gyrodactylus orecchiae sp. n. (Monogenea: Gyrodactylidae) from farmed populations of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) in the Adriatic Sea

Giuseppe Paladini^1,2,3, Joanne Cable⁴, Maria L. Fioravanti¹, Patricia J. Faria⁴, David Di Cave⁵, Andrew P. Shinn³

¹ Department of Veterinary Public Health and Animal Pathology, University of Bologna, Italy

² Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise "G. Caporale", Teramo, Italy

³ Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, Scotland, UK

⁴ School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3AX, UK

⁵ Department of Public Health and Cellular Biology, University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Gyrodactylus orecchiae sp. n. (Monogenea, Gyrodactylidae) is described from the skin, fins, eyes and gills of juvenile Sparus aurata L. (gilthead seabream) following two outbreaks of gyrodactylosis amongst stocks held in inshore floating cages on the Adriatic coast of Albania and Croatia. Fish were heavily infected (1000+ gyrodactylids/fish) with G. orecchiae which reportedly resulted in ~2-10% mortality amongst the infected stock. Morphologically, the haptoral hooks of G. orecchiae most closely resemble those of Gyrodactylus arcuatus Bychowsky, 1933 in the approximate shape of the ventral bar with its pronounced ventral bar processes and marginal hook sickles which possess a square line to the inner edge of the sickle blade and large rounded heels. The marginal hooks are also morphologically similar to those of Gyrodactylus quadratidigitus Longshaw, Pursglove et Shinn, 2003 and Gyrodactylus colemanensis Mizelle et Kritsky, 1967, but G. orecchiae can be readily discriminated from all three species by the characteristic infolding of the hamuli roots and the shape of the marginal hook sickle. Molecular sequencing of the ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2 regions (513+157+404 bp, respectively) of G. orecchiae and alignment with other gyrodactylids for which these same genomic regions have been determined, suggests that this is a new species. No similarities were found when the ITS1 region of G. orecchiae was compared with 84 species of Gyrodactylus available on GenBank.

Keywords: Monogenea, Gyrodactylus orecchiae, gilthead seabream, Sparus aurata, Croatia, Albania

Received: September 23, 2008; Accepted: January 30, 2009; Published: March 1, 2009  Show citation