New host and geographical record of Eudactylina pusilla Cressey, 1967 from Indian waters with DNA barcodes

The present paper reports the first record of the parasite Eudactylina pusilla Cressey, 1967 from the gills of the pelagic thresher shark, Alopias pelagicus Nakamura, 1935 collected during a multifilament longline operation at a depth of 762 m from Indian EEZ around Andaman Islands. The occurrence of this copepod gill parasite on A. pelagicus in the Indian waters constitutes new host record and extends the parasite’s known geographical distribution, thus contributing to the knowledge of biodiversity of the parasitic copepods in Indian waters. Molecular marker based taxonomical annotation using Mitochondrial 18S r DNA sequencing also confirmed the identity of the E. pusilla specimen.