A checklist of Digenea parasitic helminths from the North Adriatic Sea.

Abstract

The author presents an overview of isolated trematodes along their morphological description, isolated from the hosts that are for the first time reported in the North Adriatic Sea. The endohelminth parasites invasion of Northern Adriatic fish was studied during a 10-year research program. A total of 63 marine fish species of pelagic and bentic fish of the classes Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes were analysed. Twenty-two fish species were found to host Digenean trematodes (33.33% prevalence), and 12 new host fish were reported for this class. During this endohelminths parasitofauna research work 63 species of sea-fish from Northern Adriatic (total of 2659 fish) were examined and 25.16% found invaded by some of endohelminths. The presence of 22 different species of flukes (Trematoda, Digenea) was found. Flukes were present in 33.33% of invaded fish. Furthermore 12 new fish hosts for Trematodes were found and this is the object of the present paper. The names of the investigated species of Trematodes together with those of their new hosts are listed in Table 1. The data referring to each parasite are given in the specific part of this study.