Parasitic worms of the Persian sturgeon, Acipenser persicus Borodin, 1897 from the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea

Although the Persian sturgeon, Acipenser persicus, is a commercially valuable sturgeon species of the Caspian Sea, but there are only few reports about its parasite fauna in the southern part of the Caspian Sea. In this study, a total of 209 individuals of Persian sturgeon were collected from two regions in the southwestern of Caspian Sea (Guilan Province, Iran) from March 2009 to May 2011. After recording their biometric characteristics, standard necropsy and parasitology methods were used for finding parasites. The nematodes were fixed in 70% ethanol and then cleared in lactophenol. The other worms were fixed in 10% buffered formalin and stained with aqueous acetocarmine. In this study, a total of 1396 worms belonging to six species, including two nematode species viz. Cucullanus sphaerocephalus and Eustrongylides excisus, two cestodes viz. Amphilina foliacea and Bothrimonus fallax, one digenean trematode, namely Skrjabinopsolus semiarmatus, and one acanthocephalan, namely Leptorhynchoides plagicephalus were found in 209 examined Persian sturgeons.