Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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Daily Overview |
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CP6.2: Wildlife 1: Fish, Snakes & Turtles 5 min talks Location: Lecture Theatre 3 Session Chair: Nathan Bott, RMIT University Session Chair: Amanda Ash, Murdoch University | |
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A new spined trematode in a spineless family Murdoch University, Australia The Opecoelidae is the richest family of the Trematoda, with sexual adults in a broad range of marine and freshwater fishes. Opecoelids are usually recognisable for a combination of generalised characters and the lack of specialised features; the most conspicuously absent feature is tegument spines. We present a new opecoelid, representing a new genus, with tegument spines, justified as belonging to the family on the basis of morphological and phylogenetic study. The new species was found in the northern pearl perch Glaucosoma buergeri (Glaucosomatidae) from Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia. It is the first trematode known from any pearl perch, which is a small but commercially important family comprising four species, three of which are endemic to Australian waters. The most intriguing question raised by this discovery is determining whether the spines in this opecoelid can be considered homologous with those found in many other trematode families – we will present a case that the spines are indeed homologous. | |