phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at o:2278 DOI 10.1038/s41598-023-38482-2 Diversity of myxozoans (Cnidaria) infecting Neotropical fishes in southern Mexico Myxozoans are a unique group of microscopic parasites that infect mainly fishes. These extremely reduced cnidarians are highly diverse and globally distributed in freshwater and marine habitats. Myxozoan diversity dimension is unknown in Mexico, a territory of an extraordinary biological diversity. This study aimed to explore, for the first time, myxozoan parasite diversity from fishes of the Neotropical region of Mexico. We performed a large morphological and molecular screening using host tissues of 22 ornamental and food fish species captured from different localities of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Myxozoan infections were detected in 90% of the fish species, 65% of them had 1 or 2 and 35% had 3 and up to 8 myxozoan species. Forty-one putative new species were identified using SSU rDNA phylogenetic analyses, belonging to two main lineages: polychaete-infecting (5 species) and oligochaete-infecting (36 species) myxozoans; from those we describe 4 new species: Myxidium zapotecus sp. n., Zschokkella guelaguetza sp. n., Ellipsomyxa papantla sp. n. and Myxobolus zoqueus sp. n. Myxozoan detection increased up to 6 × using molecular screening, which represents 3.7 × more species detected than by microscopy. This study demonstrated that Neotropical fishes from Mexico are hosts of a multitude of myxozoans, representing a source of emerging diseases with large implications for economic and conservation reasons. eng Ribosomal Dna-Sequence; Myxosporea; Multivalvulida; Synopsis; Parasite; Trade; Wild; Sea 2023-11-06T10:39:14.763Z LOMv1.0 Author BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Alama-Bermejo;Gema; FN:Gema Alama-Bermejo END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Fiala;Ivan; FN:Ivan Fiala END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Pecková;Hana; FN:Hana Pecková END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Oceguera-Figueroa;Alejandro; FN:Alejandro Oceguera-Figueroa END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Hernández-Orts;Jesús S; FN:Jesús S Hernández-Orts END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:García-Varela;Martín; FN:Martín García-Varela END:VCARD https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/scheme https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/text Textdokument Text LOMv1.0 yes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 application/pdf 1290066 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:2278 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:2278/thumbnail LOMv1.0 discipline