Nagasawa, K. (2015). Infection of Brachiella thynni (Copepoda, Lernaeopodidae) on pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis (Actinopterygii, Scombridae), cultured in Japan. Crustaceana (Leiden). 88(7-8):945-948.
Infection of Brachiella thynni (Copepoda, Lernaeopodidae) on pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis (Actinopterygii, Scombridae), cultured in Japan.
Crustaceana (Leiden)
88(7-8):945-948.
Publication
Available for editors
In Japan, many species of marine ?sh are cultured in coastal waters, and to date 20 species of parasitic copepods have been reported from these ?sh: they are mostly caligids (12 spp.), followed by lernaeopodids (4 spp.), pennellids (1 sp.), chondracanthids (1 sp.), taeniacanthids (1 sp.), and an unidenti?ed species (1 sp.) (Nagasawa, 2015). Since the 1990s, Paci?c blue?n tuna (Thunnus orientalis (Temminck & Schlegel, 1844)) (Scombridae) has been commercially cultured in southwestern Japan using net cages (Yamamoto, 2012), but due to the short time period of their culture, little information is available on the parasitic copepods infecting farmed T. orientalis. Only a caligid, Caligus macarovi Gusev, 1951, is known to occur on farmed T. orientalis in Japan (Nagasawa, 2011a, b). Recently, a lernaeopodid, Brachiella thynni Cuvier, 1830, was found infecting a net-caged T. orientalis.
A single specimen of B. thynni was collected from the body surface near the base of the right pectoral ?n of an individual of T. orientalis (2070 g in body weight (BW)) farmed in the western North Paci?c Ocean off Miyazaki Prefecture, eastern Kyushu, on 27 February 2013. The copepod specimen was ?xed and preserved in 70% ethanol. It is deposited in the Crustacea (Cr) collection of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan (NSMTCr 24118). The scienti?c and common names of ?sh used in this paper follow Froese & Pauly (2015).
