Rediscovery of a Fish Acanthocephalan, Acanthocephalus minor (Echinorhynchida: Echinorhynchidae), in the Lake Biwa Basin, Central Japan, with a Review of the Fish Acanthocephalan Fauna of the Basin

Abstract

Specimens of the echinorhynchid acanthocephalan Acanthocephalus minor Yamaguti, 1935 were collected from the rectum of a dark sleeper, Odontobutis obscura (Temminck and Schlegel, 1845), in an irrigation canal near Lake Biwa, Shiga Prefecture, west-central Japan. This represents a rediscovery of A. minor in the Lake Biwa basin after a gap of nearly 80 years. It appears not to be distributed in Lake Biwa proper, but to occur rarely in rivers and irrigation canals of a limited coastal area around the lake. To date, 10 nominal species of acanthocephalan in four families and three orders have been reported from fish in the Lake Biwa basin. Among these, striking morphological similarities between Acanthocephalus aculeatus Van Cleave, 1931 and its congener A. opsariichthydis Yamaguti, 1935 are noted. It is furthermore suggested that A. gotoi Van Cleave, 1925 could not maintain its population after the basin's wild population of its major host, Anguilla japonica Temminck and Schlegel, 1846, disappeared in the mid-1960s.