Myxosporeans (Phylum Myxozoa) Parasitic on Some Fishes from Tigris River at North, Mid and South of Baghdad Province, Iraq (original) (raw)

2013, Basrah Journal of Agricultural Sciences

Between January and December 2009, a total of 154 fish samples were collected from Tigris River from three stations at north, mid and south of Baghdad province (Al-Taji, Al-Shawaka and Al-Zaafaraniya, respectively). These fishes belonged to ten species: Alburnus caeruleus, Aspius vorax, Carasobarbus luteus, Carassius auratus, C. carassius, Cyprinus carpio, Cyprinion macrostomum, Liza abu, Mystus pelusius and Silurus triostegus. The result of inspection showed that eight species of these fishes were infected with 20 species of parasites belonging to the class Myxosporea. These included one species each of Unicauda and Chloromyxum, two species of Myxidium and 16 species of Myxobolus. Among these parasites, Myxobolus pfeifferi infected the highest number of hosts (eight hosts), while six parasite species infected one host each. Among these fishes, C. luteus was infected with the highest number of parasite species (16 species), followed by L. abu (15 species) while no infection was detected from both A. caeruleus and A. vorax. In addition, a total of 27 new host records in Iraq were reported for 15 species of these parasites.