Australapatemon burti Miller 1923

Australapatemon burti (Miller, 1923)

Parasitic stage. cercaria (ITS2 sequence: NCBI’s Genbank acc. no. KU950451).

Host. Radix labiata (Rossmaessler) (voucher no. MLym- 116 in RMBH; COI sequence: NCBI’s Genbank acc. no. KU950449).

Location. Slovakia: Low Tatras, near Vihodna, 49°03'07" N, 19°54'56" E, 740 m alt., trout pond, 10.vii.2013, S. Sokolova leg.

Remarks. Accordance between our ITS2 sequence of A. burti cercaria from Slovakia and the sequence of adult fluke from a Mexican duck specimen is 100% (Figure 1). According to recent works, Lymnaea stagnalis (Linnaeus), Stagnicola palustris (Müller), Radix auricularia (Linnaeus), Radix peregra (Müller), Radix ovata (Draparnaud) and Bathyomphalus contortus (Linnaeus) are listed as host snail taxa for A. burti in Europe (Faltýnková et al. 2007, 2016; Soldánová et al. 2012). However, R. peregra and R. ovata are invalid nominal taxa (Schniebs et al. 2013, 2015). The snail specimens, which were identified under these names, may actually belong to at least four different but relatively morphologically similar biological species: R. labiata, Radix ampla (Hartmann), Radix lagotis (Schrank) and Radix balthica (Linnaeus) (Schniebs et al. 2013, 2015). Here we confirmed that R. labiata is a host of A. burti cercariae in Europe using the molecular approach to both the parasite and the host for the first time.

This study was supported by grants from the government of Russian Federation (nos. MD–7660.2016.5 and FASO– 0410–2014–0028) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, RFBR (nos. 16–05–00854, 14–04–98801 and 15–04– 05638). Authors are grateful to Dr. Z. Izakovičová, Dr. J. Oszlanyi, Dr. P. Barančok and many other colleagues from the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Slovakia) for their great assistance under the Agreement on scientific cooperation between the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.