Integrating morphological and molecular approaches for characterizing four species of (Monogenea: Dactylogyridae) from Moroccan cyprinids, with comments on their host specificity and phylogenetic relationships.

Cyprinid fishes are known to harbour highly host-specific gill-associated parasites of . High similarity in the morphology of sclerotized structures among species, especially those parasitizing congeneric cyprinoids, makes their identification difficult. In this paper, four previously known species of are characterized and illustrated under a reliable taxonomic framework integrating morphological and molecular evidence, and their phylogenetic relationships are investigated using molecular data. The species are as follows: from ; from ; from and ; and from and . Our results revealed intraspecific genetic variability among specimens of collected from two different hosts and geographically distant basins. Phylogenetic reconstruction showed that spp. parasitizing Moroccan cyprinids are representatives of three main lineages corresponding to morphological differences and host specificity. Our records of on and increase the range of available host species i.e.,eight species of four cyprinid genera representing two phylogenetic lineages (i.e., Barbinae and Torinae).