Vol. 57, 2018

(update: 2018.05.16; 06.07) 

Agarna malayi Tiwari 1952 (Crustacea: Isopoda: Cymothoidae) Parasitising the Marine Fish, Tenualosa toli (Clupeidae) from India: Re-description/description of Parasite Life Cycle and Patterns of Occurrence

Panakkool Thamban Aneesh^1,2, Kappalli Sudha^4,*, Ameri Kottarathil Helna³, and Gopinathan Anilkumar⁵

¹Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Ministry of Environment Forest & Climate Change, Govt. of India, Kolkata-700 053, West Bengal, India. E-mail: anee3716@gmail.com
2Department of Aquatic Biology & Fisheries, University of Kerala, Kariavattam, Kerala
3Post Graduate Department of Zoology and Research Centre, Sree Narayana College, Kannur-670 007, India. E-mail: helnahere@gmail.com
4Department of Animal Science, School of Biological Sciences, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod-671316, India
5School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore 632014, India. E-mail: ganilkumar@vit.ac.in 

(Received 7 December 2017; Accepted 19 April 2018; Communicated by Benny K.K. Chan)

Panakkool Thamban Aneesh, Kappalli Sudha, Ameri Kottarathil Helna, and Gopinathan Anilkumar (2018) This paper re-describes the female stage of Agarna malayi Tiwari 1952, a protandrically hermaphroditic parasitic cymothoid, and describes the remaining life cycle stages for the first time. The re-description (female phase) of A. malayi was made based on the type specimens deposited by Tiwari (1952) in the National Zoological Collections of the Zoological Survey of India (NZC-ZSI) and data obtained from several live specimens collected from Ayyikkara Fish Landing Centre (11°51'N, 75°22'E, of Malabar Coast, India) and Marina Beach (13.0500° N, 80.2824° E, Bay of Bengal, India). General morphology, mouthparts and appendages of the species’ life cycle stages such as larvae, juveniles, male and transitional stages are also reported for the first time. We closely observed 80 marine fish species belonging to 35 different families to identify the potential host of A. malayi, and only recovered the parasite from one fish, Tenualosa toli, signifying A. malayi’s oligoxenous host specificity; the prevalence and intensity of parasitisation is 17.3 and 1.86 %, respectively. The present paper also discusses sequential life cycle stages of the species.

Key words: Parasitic cymothoid, Lifecycle, Clupeid fish, Host-parasite interaction, India.

*Correspondence: E-mail: sudhakappalli@cukerala.ac.in; ksudha50@rediffmail.com