Helicometrina nimia (Opecoelidae) is a digenean with wide distribution. Fish families most commonly used as hosts for H. nimia are Serranidae, Pomodasydae, Scorpaenidae and Clinidae. In the present study, a new host and a new host locality are presented for the species. A description of the studied specimens, besides comments concerning its taxonomic status and biometrically compared tables of ...

European Legislation has fixed microbiological, chemical and biotoxicological limits for shellfish but no limits for viruses. In the present study we report the results of an investigation on Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli, Hepatitis A virus (HAV) and Norovirus (NoV) contamination in 59 bivalve shellfish collected during the years 2011-2012 in Southern Italy. All the samples of Mytilus gallo...

The systematic status of the gonad-infecting Philometra species previously reported as P. lateolabracis (Yamaguti, 1935) from marine fishes in the Mediterranean region and off New Caledonia is evaluated with respect to the recent redescription of P. lateolabracis from the type host in Japan. Philometra jordanoi (López-Neyra, 1951) is revalidated to accommodate the nematodes from Epinephelus mar...

Otolith microchemistry (Sr:Ca, Ba:Ca) was used to evaluate habitat use patterns of the endangered dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus in southern Brazil. Individual Sr:Ca profiles exhibited low variation, with an overall tendency to increase with age. Interestingly, individual Ba:Ca profiles presented 3 contrasting patterns: the first comprised most sampled indivi duals (>80%), mostly indicati...

The brain receives sensory inputs, processes them and finally produces outputs in the form of behavior. In olfaction, many excellent studies have clarified the initial step of neural processing. However, the next step, i.e. how the meaning of the odor is added to the recognized quality of the chemical odor, is poorly understood. This is a critical problem in brain science, because the meaning o...

This study investigated the anesthetic potential of the essential oil (EO) of Aloysia polystachya in juveniles of dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus). Fish were exposed to different concentrations of EO of A. polystachya to evaluate time of induction and recovery from anesthesia. In the second experiment, fish were divided into four groups: control, ethanol and 50 or 300 µL L-1 EO of A. poly...

The Ryukyu five-lined skink (Plestiodon marginatus) is an island lizard that is even found in tiny islets with less than half a hectare of habitat area. We hypothesized that the island populations are maintained under frequent gene flow among the islands or independent of each other. To test our hypotheses, we investigated genetic structure of 21 populations from 11 land-bridge islands that wer...

Thirteen freshwater animals consisting of 8 species of fish, 1 species of shrimps and crabs and 3 species of mollusks collected during September 2000 from 8 sites in 4 districts of Chiang Mai Province: Hang Dong, San Pa Tong, Chom Tong and Hot were investigated for helminthes. Two metacercariae were recovered from 4 species of fish with the prevalence of 80.32%; Metacercariae of Stellantchasmus...