NEW INSIGHTS BASED ON MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR DATA REVEAL THE TAXONOMIC STATUS OF HALIOTREMA PTEROISI (MONOGENOIDEA: DACTYLOGYRIDAE) INFECTING DEVIL FIREFISH PTEROIS MILES (PERCIFORMES: SCORPAENOIDEI: SCORPAENIDAE) IN THE RED SEA OFF EGYPT.

Paperna, 1972 (Monogenoidea: Dactylogyridae) was found parasitizing the gill lamellae of devil firefish, Pterois miles (Bennet) (Perciformes: Scorpaenidae), in the Red Sea off Safaga (26°44'N, 33°56'E), Egypt. The parasite species was described based on morphological features of available specimens and transferred to PlatycephalotremaKritsky and Nitta, 2019 (Dactylogyridae) as Platycephalotrema pteroisi (Paperna, 1972) n. comb. The occurrence of Pl. pteroisi off Safaga, Egypt, represented a range extension for the helminth of about 160 km to the southwest of the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. The transfer of the species to Platycephalotrema based on an evaluation of morphological features was supported by an analysis of molecular sequences of the 28S rDNA gene of Pl. pteroisi and 49 other dactylogyrid species. Maximum-likelihood, Bayesian inference, and maximum parsimony analyses of this dactylogyrid sequence data revealed H. pteroisi to nest with significant support within the clade of Platycephalotrema spp. During the literature review of dactylogyrid species infecting scorpionfishes, it was determined that Ancyrocephalus sp. of Dyer et al. from luna lion fish Pterois lunulata Temminck and Schlegel collected off Okinawa-jima, Japan represented an undescribed species of Platycephalotrema.