New Annotated Records of Helminth Parasites with Light Microscopy IV Acanthocephala (Palaeacanthocephala)

Abstract

We give an account of 6 species of acanthocephalans in one class Palaeacanthocephala and 3 families collected from hosts in different geographical locations in Canada, Ukraine, Italy, the Philippines, and the USA. Each species account is annotated and morphologically presented using light microscopy showing characteristic diagnostic features. None of these accounts has been completely previously published. Almost all geographical records and many host associations are new. In the family Echinorhynchidae, we include Echinorhynchus lateralis Leidy, 1851 from Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchill), Canada. We added new descriptive information, especially of the cement glands, and compared its morphometrics with those of other collections by other observers. We also described two discrete sizes of specimens of Echinorhynchus salmonis Müller, 1784 from Coregonus artedii Lesueur in Lake Superior. In Paracanthocephalidae, we describe 3 species including Acanthocephalus lucii (Müller, 1776) Lühe, 1911 from the common European perch Perca fluviatilis Linn. in an unusual location in Ukraine at the Ubort River. We provide light microscopy documentation of that species for the first time. Acanthocephalus rhinensis Amin, Thielen, Mïnderie, Taraschewski, Sures, 2008 from Anguilla anguilla (Linn.) in Italy is described and compared with specimens that were described from Germany with corrections re the Italian notions of its color band at the anterior trunk. Acanthocephalus tahlequahensis Oetinger and Buckner, 1976 from Etheostoma punctulatum (Agassiz) in Oklahoma is documented with new morphological features for the first time and documented its distribution outside of Oklahoma. In Rhadinorhynchidae, we report Serrasentis sagittifer (Linton, 1889) Van Cleave, 1923 from Pterois volitans (Linn.). We describe these species in the context of comparative morphometrics with the original and other descriptions noted elsewhere when available.