Developmental Stages of an Invasive, Non-indigenous Sea Louce Caligus sclerotinosus Roubal, Armitage and Rhode, 1983 (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida: Caligidae) Parasitic on Red Sea Bream Pagrus major (Temminck and Schlegel, 1843) Collected from Japan
This study describes and illustrates complete lifecycle & the morphology of naupliar and copepodid stages of Caligus sclerotinosus, an invasive, non-indigenous copepod parasite collected from commercially important red sea bream Pagrus major cultured as well as wild populations in western Japan. This study is pioneer in adopting the alternative terminology for the developmental stages of caligid copepods proposed by Piasecki et al. (2023). The life cycle of C. sclerotinosus consists of 8 stages: two nauplii, five copepodids (copepodid I to V) and one adult, which exhibited the general pattern of other congeners. To avoid further terminological problems, future works on the life cycle of other siphonostomatoid copepods should follow the nomenclature proposed by Piasecki et al. (2023), as done in this study.
Read the full article, here