<i>Anilocra prionuri</i> (Isopoda: Cymothoidae), a marine fish ectoparasite, from the northern Ryukyu Islands, southern Japan, with a note on a skin wound of infected fish

Abstract

Anilocra prionuri Williams & Bunkley-Williams, 1986, is reported based on a female specimen collected from the skin below the nostril of a scalpel sawtail, Prionurus scalprum Valenciennes, 1835, in the southern East China Sea off Kuchinoerabu-jima Island, one of the northern Ryukyu Islands, southern Japan. Anilocra prionuri was previously reported only from off the Pacific coast of central Hon­shu, Japan, but the present collection extends the geographical distribution range of the species from central Honshu southwest to the northern Ryukyu Islands and represents its first record from the East China Sea. The fish had a wound with heavily damaged epidermis at the attachment site of A. prionuri. It was a rare parasite of P. scalprum at the collection site.