Gastrointestinal Helminth Parasites of Pseudotolithus species from Lagos Lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

The gastrointestinal helminth parasitic fauna of Pseudotolithus specimens, an economically important group of fishes from
Lagos Lagoon, was examined to describe the effects of gastrointestinal helminth parasites on the state of health of
Pseudotolithusspecies at Lagos Lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria. Fish specimens obtained from Makoko Fish Market were sacrificed
from October 2019 to March 2020, and gastrointestinal helminth parasites were isolated. Pseudotolithus typhus (n = 76),
Pseudotolithus elongatus(n = 104) and Pseudotolithus senegalensis(n = 120) were among the 300 fish specimens that were
analysed. In total, 186 out of 300 fish specimens (62.0%) were found to have gastrointestinal helminth parasites after six
months of sample collection. Pseudotolithus senegalensis had the highest prevalence of infection, 76 (63.3%), followed by P.
elongatus, 68 (65.4%) and P. typhus, 42 (55.3%), which had the lowest prevalence of infection. Five species of parasites,
Capillaria sp., Echinocephalus sp., Orneoascaris sp., Diphyllobothrium latum, and Neochinorhyncus sp., were isolated.
Neochinorhyncus and Orneoascarissp. had the highest prevalence among all Pseudotolithusspecies. The overall prevalence
of infection, 77 (41.4%), was recorded in Capillaria sp., while the least prevalence, 08 (4.3%), was from Echinocephalussp.
The total prevalence for the present study is 62.0%. There was no significant difference in infection levels (P>0.05) between
the two sexes, suggesting that neither sex was reliably affected by the parasite. Pseudotolithus species show a high
prevalence of gastrointestinal helminths with a heavy parasitic burden, which may compromise the productivity,
marketability, palatability, and or death of fish.