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Consideration of Taxonomic‐Nomenclatural Problems Posed by Report of Myxosporidians with a Two‐Host Life Cycle 1
Author(s) -
CORLISS JOHN O.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
the journal of protozoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 0022-3921
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.1985.tb03083.x
Subject(s) - biology , myxosporea , host (biology) , zoology , myxobolus , phylogenetic tree , myxozoa , genus , taxon , fish <actinopterygii> , genealogy , evolutionary biology , ecology , fishery , history , genetics , gill , gene
The recent report of two hosts in the life cycle of the myxosporidian parasite causing whirling disease in rainbow trout left unresolved several important taxonomic‐nomenclatural problems that are thus treated here. Although the spore morphology is totally different in the invertebrate host, the species involved can legally have but one name, viz., Myxobolus cerebralis Hofer, 1903 (until 1984, widely known under the name “ Myxosoma cerebralis ”). The “actinomyxidean” stage found in tubificid worms could have been tentatively assigned to the genus Triactinomyxon only if the latter had been considered as a collective‐group name. While intermediate ranks are also affected, even the high‐level groups Myxosporidia and Actinomyxidea, long considered taxonomically separate in conventional protozoan classification schemes, must be redefined. If future investigations confirm the existence of a two‐host life cycle for Myxobolus cerebralis and perhaps for other related myxosporidian fish parasites, then the phylogenetic distinctiveness of Myxosporidia and Actinomyxidea has been undermined and perhaps they can no longer be treated as evolutionarily divergent assemblages.