First report of a fish blood fluke from sub-Saharan Africa: Nomasanguinicola dentata (Paperna, 1964) Warren and Bullard, 2023 infecting African sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) Teugles, 1982 in the Kavango River, Namibia, and a revised phylogeny for Sanguinicolidae Poche, 1926

Micah B Warren; Francois Jacobs; Haley R Dutton; Edward C Netherlands; Louis H DuPreez; Stephen A Bullard

doi:10.1016/j.parint.2024.102862

First report of a fish blood fluke from sub-Saharan Africa: Nomasanguinicola dentata (Paperna, 1964) Warren and Bullard, 2023 infecting African sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) Teugles, 1982 in the Kavango River, Namibia, and a revised phylogeny for Sanguinicolidae Poche, 1926

Parasitol Int. 2024 Jun:100:102862. doi: 10.1016/j.parint.2024.102862. Epub 2024 Jan 17.

Authors

Micah B Warren¹, Francois Jacobs², Haley R Dutton³, Edward C Netherlands⁴, Louis H DuPreez⁵, Stephen A Bullard⁶

Affiliations

¹ Aquatic Parasitology Laboratory, School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, College of Agriculture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Electronic address: brett.warren@auburn.edu.
² Kamutjonga Research and Training Institute, Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Divundu, Namibia.
³ Aquatic Parasitology Laboratory, School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, College of Agriculture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA.
⁴ Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, PO Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa.
⁵ African African Amphibian Conservation Research Group, Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University, Private Bag ×6001, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa; South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Somerset Street, Grahamstown 6139, South Africa.
⁶ Aquatic Parasitology Laboratory, School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, College of Agriculture, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA; Unit for Environmental Sciences and Development, North-West University, Private Bag X6001, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa.

PMID: 38237673
DOI: 10.1016/j.parint.2024.102862

Abstract

We herein provide a supplemental description of Nomasanguinicola dentata (Paperna, 1964) Warren and Bullard, 2023 (Digenea: Sanguinicolidae) and provide a revised 28S phylogeny to test relationships among freshwater fish blood flukes. We examined the heart of three African sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) Teugles, 1982 from the Kavango River (northeastern Namibia) that was infected with adults of N. dentata. This blood fluke differs from N. canthoensis by having a body 5.3-6.7 longer than wide (vs. 3.5-4.6), an anterior esophageal swelling 7-8% (vs. 14-24%) of total esophageal length, a posterior esophageal swelling 3-5% (vs. 8-10%) of total esophageal length, a pre-cecal (vs. wholly post-cecal) testis, and an ovary that does not extend laterally beyond the nerve cords. The 28S sequence for N. dentata differed from that of N. canthoensis by 144 bp (9% difference). The phylogenetic analysis recovered these species as sister taxa and Sanguinicolidae as monophyletic. This is the first report of a fish blood fluke from sub-Saharan Africa, and the first report of a species of Nomasanguinicola from Africa in ∼40 yrs.

Keywords: Africa; Fish blood fluke; Sub-Saharan; Systematics; Taxonomy.

MeSH terms

Animals
Catfishes*
Female
Fish Diseases* / epidemiology
Male
Namibia
Phylogeny
Rivers
Trematoda* / genetics