Description and relationships of two novel species of Ceratomyxa Thelohan, 1892 infecting the gallbladders of Aulopiformes: Atlantic lizardfish Synodus saurus Linnaeus, 1758 and royal flagfin Aulopus filamentosus Bloch, 1792 from Cretan Sea, Greece.
Two members of Aulopiformes (grinners) were examined for myxosporean parasites in their gallbladders. Synodus saurus and Aulopus filamentosus from Cretan Sea, Greece were infected by Ceratomyxa parasites which are described in this paper. Both species of Ceratomyxa are new and referred for the first time as Ceratomyxa cretensis n.sp. and Ceratomyxa filamentosi n.sp. The new species are described morphologically by light and scanning electron microscopy analysis, and characterized genetically by sequencing the small subunit (SSU) rDNA. The SSU rDNA sequences obtained from the two novel Ceratomyxa species were used for the construction of a phylogenetic tree with all the available Ceratomyxa SSU rDNA sequences.