First record of the Asian fish tapeworm Schyzocotyle acheilognathi (Cestoda: Bothriocephalidae) in the native freshwater fish Parodon magdalenensis from Colombia

Astrid Rave¹Sara Lopez Osorio¹Manuel Uribe¹Carlos Rodrigo Hermosilla¹Jenny Jovana Chaparro-Gutiérrez^1,2*

• ¹CIBAV Research Group, School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Agrarian Sciences, University of Antioquia, UdeA, Medellin, Colombia, Medellin, Colombia
• ²University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia

The Asian fish tapeworm (AFT), Schyzocotyle acheilognathi, is a notorious cosmopolitan invasive parasite that has great relevance in freshwater ecosystems. This euryxenous cestode life cycle includes a wide variety of definitive hosts and has also been reported in more than 300 species of free-living and farmed fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. The remarkable parasite pathogenicity leads to high mortality rates in infected fish, particularly among cyprinids. The S. acheilognathi environmental adaptability to various environmental conditions has contributed to a worldwide spillover across continents, except Antarctica. In South America, S. acheilognathi has been reported in Brazil and Argentina. Herein we examined 103 specimens of a native characiform fish Parodon magdalenensis, an hyperendemic fish native species of the Magdalena River basin within Colombia, finding a parasitic prevalence of 32/103 (31.07%). This study represents the first morphological and molecular description of AFT in Colombia, as well as in a new host species (P. magdalenensis), supported by rDNA sequence 28s, 18s and 16s.