Meet A Newly Named Species of Monogenean Gill Fluke

This is a markedly different type of gill fluke that Taito and Andrew found and ID'd in a telescope shiner. The animal is visible to the naked eye at about 3 mm long, compared to the Dactylogyrus species we've seen at about 300 micrometers long (a tenth as long). It's definitely in the genus Octomacrum, which currently has 7 or 8 known species who parasitize various suckers or cyprinids. Don Cloutman at Bemidji State confirmed our genus ID. He also said he'd never seen it on a telescope shiner. We're convinced that it is a new, undescribed species, so I have a proposed binomial for it: Octomacrum lamiaruthis, with the specific name meaning "Ruth's vampire" in Latin in honor of my wife, Ruth Fledermaus. The vampire reference reflects the feeding strategy of gill flukes, which consume blood and other fluids through a wound they make in a fish's gill filaments. And thanks to Stephen Sansom at UNC for the correct Latin structure for the name.