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International Journal of Marine Science 2013, Vol.3, No.21, 166-172
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
166
Research Article Open Access
The First Record of Three Cymothoid Isopods from Red Sea Fishes, Yemeni
Coastal Waters
A.B. Al-Zubaidy
1
, F.T. Mhaisen
2
1. Department of Marine Biology and Fisheries, Faculty of Marine Science and Environment, Hodeidah University, Yemen
2. Tegnervägen 6B, 641 36 Katrineholm, Sweden
Corresponding author email: mhaisenft@yahoo.co.uk
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol.3, No.21 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0021
Received: 14 Mar., 2013
Accepted: 18 Apr., 2013
Published: 23 Apr., 2013
Copyright
©
2013 Al-Zubaidy and Mhaisen, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Al-Zubaidy and Mhaisen, 2013, The First Record of Three Cymothoid Isopods from Red Sea Fishes, Yemeni Coastal Waters, International Journal of Marine
Science, Vol.3, No.21 166
-
172 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0021)
Abstract
A total of 680 fish specimens belonging to 31 species from the Yemeni coastal waters of the Red Sea were inspected for
the poorly studied isopod infestations. Three isopod species of the suborder Cymothoida, family Cymothoidae were detected. These
are
Nerocila orbignyi
(Guérin-Méneville, 1832) from both
Moolgarda seheli
and
Liza aurata
,
Cymothoa exigua
Schioedte and
Meinert, 1884 from both
Lutjanus gibbus
and
Chelon macrolepis
and
Ceratothoa capri
(Trilles, 1964) from
C. macrolepis
. All these
isopod species are reported here for the first time from the Yemeni coastal waters of the Red Sea.
Keywords
Isopoda; Cymothoidae; Marine fishes; Red Sea; Yemen; Geographical distribution
1 Introduction
Marine isopods play an important role in the food web,
in particular in removing decaying material from
natural or altered environments and they also represent
an important factor of economic unbalance (Espinosa
Perez and Hendrickx, 2001). They occur on fish host
on the outer body or fins, in the mouth, gill chambers,
or nostrils, or occasionally in self-made pockets in the
flesh of their hosts (Hoffman, 1998). Isopods cause
significant economic losses to fisheries by killing,
stunting, or damaging these fishes. They can also kill
or impair immature fishes so that they do not survive
(Bunkley-Williams et al., 2006). Isopod crustaceans
are part of the greatest fish ectoparasite group and are
easy to identify due to their size, morphological
aspects and because they are easily found on the outer
part of fish bodies (Thatcher, 2000). According to
WoRMS (2013), the marine species of the order
Isopoda are classified into 12 suborders among which
the suborder Cymothoida includes 29 families. Among
the families of the suborder Cymothoida, the family
Cymothoidae included 43 genera and 358 species.
The family Cymothoidae includes parasites of numerous
families and species of marine, freshwater or brackish
water teleost fishes (Brusca, 1981). Members of this
family have been recorded from the Mediterranean
Sea, Adriatic Sea, Black Sea and Atlantic Ocean
(Trilles, 1991). They are found in various parts of the
fish body, including the buccal cavity, gills chamber
and fins (Kayis and Ceylan, 2011). They provide
portals of entry for other pathogens in fish (Horton
and Okamura, 2003). They are haematophagous;
feeding on their host blood by producing an anticoagulant
substance from their latero-oesophagus glands
(Romestand and Trilles, 1976).
Marine isopods are poorly studied animals in many
regions of the world and some groups remain
completely undescribed (El-Shahawy and Desouky,
2010). This was the situation in the Red Sea (Hiekal
and El-Sokkary, 1990), particularly in Yemen, as there
is only one published report dealing with the record of
the isopod
Gnathia
sp. from one fish species from the
Yemeni coast of the Red Sea (Al-Zubaidy, 2007).
Therefore, the objective of the present study was to
focus on the analyses of the isopoda fish parasitic
fauna of the Yemeni coastal waters of the Red Sea.
2 Data and Methods
Fishes belonging to 31 different species were examined
for ectoparasites. These fish were obtained during the
period from October 2009 till May 2010 by spear
fishing, gill netting in shallow Yemeni coastal waters