Lepeophtheirus lewisi Hewitt, 1971

Soler-Jimenez, Lilia C., Morales-Serna, F. Neptali, Aguirre-Macedo, Ma. Leopoldina, McLaughlin, John P., Jaramillo, Alejandra G., Shaw, Jenny C., James, Anna K., Hechinger, Ryan F., Kuris, Armand M., Lafferty, Kevin D. & Vidal-Martinez, Victor M., 2019, Parasitic copepods (Crustacea, Hexanauplia) on fishes from the lagoon flats of Palmyra Atoll, Central Pacific, ZooKeys 833, pp. 85-106 : 85

Lepeophtheirus lewisi Hewitt, 1971

Type host.

Acanthurus olivaceus ( Acanthuridae ).

Other host and localities.

Acanthurus olivaceus ( Acanthuridae ) from Hawaii ( Hewitt 1971). Naso hexacanthus (Bleeker), Acanthurus triostegus ( Acanthuridae ), Myripristis sp., Fistularia petimba Lacepède ( Fistulariidae ) ( Lewis 1964a, 1964b, Palm and Bray 2014).

Current host.

Acanthurus xanthopterus ( Acanthuridae ).

Site of infection.

Gills.

Prevalence and mean intensity.

5 and 1 (n = 20).

Specimens deposited.

CHCM No. 572 (voucher) (1 vial, 1 specimen ♂). USNM

No. 1550603 (voucher) (1 vial, 1 specimen ♂).

Remarks.

Lepeophtheirus lewisi was originally described as Dentigryps bifurcatus by Lewis (1964a). However, Hewitt (1971) stated that there is not a useful character to separate Dentigryps Wilson, 1913 from Lepeophtheirus and, therefore, reassigned species of Dentigryps to Lepeophtheirus . As the name L. bifurcatus was preoccupied by L. bifurcatus Wilson 1905, Hewitt (1971) renamed Lewis’ species as L. lewisi . The material of the present study corresponds to a male of L. lewisi . The identification of this species was difficult without female specimens; nonetheless, the morphology of our material fits the description provided by Lewis (1964a) for the male of L. lewisi . In addition, this copepod has been mainly found in acanthurid fish from the Central Pacific as in the present work.