New records of fish parasitic isopods of the gill-attaching genus Mothocya Costa, in Hope, 1851 from the Virgin Islands, Caribbean, with description of a new species

By

Hadfield, Kerry A.
Sikkel, Paul
Smit, Nico

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2014-9-10

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

439

Pages

109--125

Subjects

Caribbean Sea , Cymothoidae , fish parasite , gill chamber , Guana Island , Mothocya , St. John , St. Thomas

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.439.8093

 

Abstract

Two species of Mothocya Costa, in Hope, 1851 are reported from the Virgin Islands. Mothocya xenobranchia Bruce, 1986 was collected from St. John Island from the gills of the Atlantic needlefish, Strongylura marina, which is a new locality record and also confirms a previously uncertain host identity. Mothocya bertlucy sp. n. is described from St. Thomas, St John and Guana Islands, from the gills of the redlip blenny, Ophioblennius macclurei, the first record of a blenny as host for any Mothocya. The distinguishing characters of Mothocya bertlucy sp. n. include its small size (< 9 mm) and eyes, the slender pleotelson with a narrowly rounded caudomedial point, extended uropod peduncle and uropods which do not extend past the pleotelson posterior margin, and the narrow pleon which is only slightly overlapped by pereonite 7.