Folia Parasitologica 70:015 (2023) | DOI: 10.14411/fp.2023.015

Molecular characterisation of three species of Coitocaecum (Digenea: Opecoelidae) infecting Clinus superciliosus (Clinidae) in South Africa, with description of Coitocaecum brayi sp. n.

Anja Vermaak¹, Nico J. Smit¹, Olena Kudlai^{1, 2}

¹ Water Research Group, Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa;

² Institute of Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania

The genus Coitocaecum Nicoll, 1915 is part of the most speciose digenean family, the Opecoelidae Ozaki, 1925, which is found globally in both freshwater and marine fishes. Fifteen opecoelid species have been reported from marine fishes in South Africa, yet only one species of Coitocaecum has been described from this region: Coitocaecum capense Bray, 1987. During an explorative study of the digeneans of the endemic, intertidal fish Clinus superciliosus (Linnaeus) from the Saldanha Bay area, Cape Town harbour, Hermanus, the Tsitsikamma section of the Garden Route National Park and Chintsa East in South Africa, a total of three distinct species of Coitocaecum were identified based on morphological and molecular (28S rDNA, ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 rDNA and COI mtDNA) data: the previously mentioned C. capense, Coitocaecum brayi sp. n. and a third, unnamed species. We provide the first molecular characterisation of species of Coitocaecum from South Africa, accompanied by detailed morphological descriptions. This study illustrates the importance of an integrated taxonomic approach, especially when studying species with similar morphology. These findings further emphasise the lack of information on the true diversity and molecular data for trematodes of marine fishes in South Africa, creating a great capacity for future explorative taxonomic studies and highlighting the use of intertidal areas for conducting such research.

Keywords: Trematoda, marine fish parasites, genetics, phylogeny, morphology, Afrotropical region

Received: March 1, 2023; Revised: June 7, 2023; Accepted: June 10, 2023; Published online: July 25, 2023  Show citation