Description of a new species of Moniliformis (Acanthocephala: Moniliformidae) from Peromyscus hylocetes (Rodentia: Cricetidae) in Mexico.

Abstract Moniliformis ibunami n. sp., is described from the intestine of the transvolcanic deermouse Peromyscus hylocetes Merriam 1898 (Cricetidae) from Parque Nacional Nevado de Colima “El Floripondio”, Jalisco, Mexico. The new species can be distinguished morphologically from the other 18 congeneric species of Moniliformis by a combination of morphological and molecular characters including the number of hooks on the proboscis (12 longitudinal rows, each one with six to eight transversally arranged unrooted hooks), the proboscis length (230–270 μm), the female trunk length (159–186 mm) and egg size (40–70 × 20–40). For molecular distinction, nearly complete sequences of the small subunit (SSU) and large subunit (LSU) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (cox 1) of the mitochondrial DNA of the new species were obtained and compared with available sequences downloaded from GenBank. Phylogenetic analyses inferred with the three molecular markers consistently showed that Moniliformis ibunami n. sp. is sister to other congeneric species of Moniliformis. The genetic divergence with cox 1 gene among Moniliformis ibunami n. sp., M. saudi, M. cryptosaudi, M. kalahariensis, M. necromysi and M. moniliformis ranged from 20 to 27%. Morphological evidence and high genetic divergence, plus the phylogenetic analyses, indicate that acanthocephalans collected from the intestines of transvolcanic deer mice represent a new species which constitute the seventh species of the genus Moniliformis in the Americas.