Low prevalence of third-stage larvae parasitizing Sea of Galilee fisheries: 1-year survey after 57 years of no information.

Freshwater and marine ecosystems are a suitable habitat for parasitic nematodes of the genus (family: Anisakidae) to complete their complex life cycle. Several fish species of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) were reported in 1964 as second intermediate/paratenic hosts of spp. larvae. The lack of taxonomically relevant morphological features of these larvae hindered their proper identification. Here we report the results of a 1-year survey conducted in 2021, 57 years after the first (and only) such survey. We analyzed 352 specimens from 10 fish species (native and non-native) of the Sea of Galilee (Israel) ichthyofauna. We compared our results with those of the first parasitological survey conducted by Paperna in 1964; the overall prevalence of nematodes referable to larvae was 16.8% and 0.85% in 1964 and in 2021, respectively. Different from the first survey that identified larvae morphologically, we used both morphological and molecular tools. Two wild native cyprinids-Jordan himri () and Jordan barbel ()-were infected (a single specimen each) with larvae in their abdominal cavity. A single specimen of blue tilapia () was infected with two larvae of E, localized in the pericardial cavity. The findings of our study, which is part of a large project focused on spp. infecting both piscivorous birds and fish collected in Israel, advance our knowledge about the distribution and host range of this potentially zoonotic parasite in fishery products of the Sea of Galilee.