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

Kerry A Hadfield; Paul C Sikkel; Nico J Smit

doi:10.3897/zookeys.439.8093

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

Zookeys. 2014 Sep 10:(439):109-25. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.439.8093. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Kerry A Hadfield¹, Paul C Sikkel², Nico J Smit¹

Affiliations

¹ Water Research Group (Ecology), Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, Potchefstroom Campus, North West University, Private Bag X6001, Potchefstroom, 2520, South Africa.
² Department of Biological Sciences, Arkansas State University, P.O. Box 599, State University, AR, 72467, USA.

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.

Keywords: Caribbean Sea; Cymothoidae; Guana Island; Mothocya; St. John; St. Thomas; fish parasite; gill chamber.