Morphological and molecular characterization of Neodiplostomum vaucheri Dubois, 1983 (Digenea: Diplostomidae) from Trachops cirrhosus (Spix, 1823) (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) in the southern Peruvian Amazon using third-generation sequencing (Oxford Nanopore).

Neodiplostomum vaucheri Dubois, 1983 is a digenean trematode originally described from the intestine of the woolly false vampire bat, Chrotopterus auritus (Peters, 1856), in the northwestern Peruvian Amazon. Decades later, it was also reported from the fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosis (Spix, 1823), in Ecuador. During a helminthological survey of phyllostomid bats at the Kawsay Biological Station in Madre de Dios, southeastern Peruvian Amazonia, specimens of Neodiplostomum Railliet, 1919 were recovered from the intestine of T. cirrhosus. Morphological comparisons with the holotype confirmed these specimens as conspecific with N. vaucheri. Phylogenetic inference supported the morphological identification, recovering the Peruvian isolate with an N. vaucheri isolate from another South American region within the same clade, with strong support (ML = 90; BI = 0.9587). The observed genetic divergence (4.47% under the Kimura two-parameter model and 4.27% based on uncorrected p-distances) in the partial cox1 sequence may indicate cryptic diversity, as previously noted in congeners. This represents the first integrative characterization of a digenean from a bat host in Peru, contributing to our understanding of parasite diversity in neotropical chiropterans. Furthermore, the use of third-generation sequencing technology (Oxford Nanopore) proved effective for generating reliable partial gene sequences, underscoring its applicability in molecular helminthology.