Sphaerospora araii n. sp. (Myxosporea: Sphaerosporidae) from the kidney of a longnose skate (Raja rhina Jordan and Gilbert) from the Pacific Ocean off Canada

Abstract

Sphaerospora araii n. sp., from the lumen of the kidney tubules of Raja rhina collected from the Pacific Ocean off British Columbia, Canada, is described and illustrated. It is distinguished from all previously described members of the genus by the large dimensions of the mature spore (length of 14.3–18.4 μm), the high number of coils of the polar filament (7–9), and the pattern of valvular ornamentation. A list of named species of Sphaerospora is appended and the following new combinations are proposed: Sphaerospora brevis (Polyansky. 1955) for Myxoproteus brevis; S. hypophthalmichthydis (Chen and Hsieh, 1984) for Podospora hypophthalmichthydis: Mitraspora donecae (Gazimagomedov, 1970) for Sphaerospora donecae; Mitraspora dubinini (Shulman, 1962) for Sphaerospora dubinini; Ortholinea irregularis (Kabata, 1962) for Sphaerospora irregularis; Ortholinea percotti (Dogiel and Akhmerov in Akhmerov, I960) for Sphaerospora percotti; and Ortholinea undulans (Meglitsch, 1970) for Sphaerospora undulans.