The survey of ectoparasites on two species of Triakids (Mustelus mustelus and M. punctulatus) sharks from Tunisian coasts

Bouchra Benmansour; Feriel Youssef; Manel Ben Ali; Bander Albogami; Fehmi Boufahja

doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2022.02.052

The survey of ectoparasites on two species of Triakids (Mustelus mustelus and M. punctulatus) sharks from Tunisian coasts

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2022 May;29(5):3610-3616. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2022.02.052. Epub 2022 Mar 4.

Authors

Bouchra Benmansour^{1

2}, Feriel Youssef¹, Manel Ben Ali³, Bander Albogami³, Fehmi Boufahja⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Biodiversity, Parasitology and Ecology of Aquatic Ecosytems, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia.
² University of Carthage, Faculty of Sciences of Bizerte, 7021 Zarzouna, Tunisia.
³ Department of Biology, College of Sciences, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ University of Carthage, Faculty of Sciences of Bizerte, LR01ES14 Laboratory of Environment Biomonitoring, Coastal Ecology and Ecotoxicology Unit, 7021 Zarzouna, Tunisia.

Abstract

Between 2018 and 2020, 696 fish belonging to two species of sharks from the Family Triakidae (Mustelus mustelus and M. punctulatus) were collected from the coasts of Tunisia and inspected for parasites. Six copepod taxa (Perissopus dentatus Steenstrup & Lütken, 1861, Eudactylinella alba Wilson, 1932, Kroyeria lineata Van Beneden, 1853, Nesippus orientalis Heller, 1865 and Lernaeopoda galei Krøyer, 1837, Kroyeria sp.), four isopod species (Anilocra physodes (Linnaeus, 1758), Emetha audouini (H. Milne Edwards, 1840), Ceratothoa parallela (Otto, 1828) and Ceratothoa oestroides (Risso, 1816)) and two monogenean species (Erpocotyle sp1. And Erpocotyle sp2) were collected. A large number of global host records was reported, including the occurrence of E. audouini on M. mustelus and of Erpocotyle sp.2 on M. punctulatus. The study of the diversity of parasites per host species revealed that M. mustelus had a higher parasitic richness compared to M. punctulatus . In this study, it was provided for the first records on ectoparasites on Triakidae sharks from Tunisian coasts and their infection indices.

Keywords: Copepods; Isopods; Monogeneans; Mustelus mustelus; Mustelus punctulatus; Tunisian coast.