Three new host records for the marine fish ectoparasite, Nerocila phaiopleura (Isopoda: Cymothoidae), with a list of its known hosts

Abstract

The cymothoid isopod Nerocila phaiopleura Bleeker, 1857 is a skin parasite of actinopterygian fishes in the Indo-West Pacific. The isopod is reported from three species of fishes, viz., Japanese barracuda, Sphyraena japonica Bloch & Schneider, 1801 (Sphyraenidae), Japanese jack mackerel, Trachurus japonicus (Temminck & Schlegel, 1844) (Carangidae), and round herring, Etrumeus micropus (Temminck & Schlegel, 1846) (Dussumieriidae), in coastal waters of the northwest Pacific Ocean off Mie Prefecture, central Japan. These three fish species represent new host records for N. phaiopleura. Based on the literature published between 1857 and 2017, 44 nominal and some unidentified species in four orders and 14 families of fishes have been reported as the hosts of N. phaiopleura, and 18 nominal species of them belong to two clupeiform families (10 spp. in Clupeidae and 8 spp. in Engraulidae). This indicates that N. phaiopleura utilizes a wide variety of fish species as its hosts but prefers the fishes of the two families. The infected fish examined in this study had a large skin wound caused by N. phaiopleura.