Abstract
Diseased tiger puffer (Takijugu rubripes) showed anorexia and severe anemia in the gills. In wet mount preparations Heterobothrium sp. with 4 sets of clamps on the opisthohaptor attached to the gill filaments of the diseased fish. From the drum-shaped filter for filtration of the culturing water and the sediment of aquarium held the diseased fish in the laboratory, their eggs forming long strings through connection of the bipolar filaments could be easily collected. The parasites with 4 pairs of clamps on the opisthohaptor were 2.38mm in length and 0.71 mm in width, but had no isthmus which was separated the opisthohapor from the body proper. The parasites could be easily distinguished from Heterobothrium tetrodonis and H. okamotoi in the absence of distinct isthmus, and resembled H. yamagutii described from the gills of Takifugu xanthopterus in Japan. Their eggs were yellowish spindle in shape and 180-200 x 5-6 Iffil in size, which were pointed at both ends. The eggs were linked to adjacent egg shells like a string of beads by the filaments. Onchomiracidia, ciliated larvae spawned from the eggs were 133 Iffil (120-146 Iffil) x 751ffil (68-80 Iffil) in size. The length of the ciliates was 12 Iffil in the anterior part of the larvae and 14 Iffil in the posterior part. Round or leaf-shaped young parasites attached on the secondary gill lamellae. There was a tendency that most of round smaller parasites without an opisthohaptor were found in the middle part of the gill lamellae while leaf-shaped larger ones with a opisthohaptor attached on the distal part of the gill filaments. Each clamp of mature parasites grasped one secondary gill filament which resulted in bending of the filaments and hyperplasia of the epithelium and mucous cells. In the branchial cavity around the pseudobranch, mature parasites grasped the adjacent ones by means of the clamps, and the epithelia of the branchial cavity around the parasites showed severe irregular hyperplasia and erosion with strongly PAS-positive mucous cells.
