Morphological and Molecular Study of Contracaecum Larvae with a New Record of Contracaecum Septentrionale in Al-Sanaf Marsh Southern Thi-Qar Province, Iraq Mohammad Zainab Abd-Ali1,*, Hbaiel Mohammad Kareem1 1Department of Biology, College of Education for Pure Sciences, Thi-Qar University, Iraq *Corresponding Author: Zainab Abd-Ali Mohammad, Department of Biology, College of Education for Pure Sciences, Thi-Qar University, Iraq, zainababdalimohammad@yahoo.com
Online published on 23 December, 2019. Abstract Contracaecum nematodes are the most significantgenus of the Anisakidae because of their wide range of host species involved in their life cycles, large number of their species and their health impacts. The current study aims to present the morphological andmolecular characters offourth stage larvae of Contracaecum that isolated from N. nycticorax proventriculus as free larvae in al-Sanaf marsh, southern Iraq. Larvae of Contracaecum spp. collected from proventriculus of N. nycticorax aquatic birds werestudied morphologically and their genomic DNA isolated, the ITS-1 regions of rDNA amplified by PCR technique. Sequences alignments carried out to screen nucleotide variation in ITS-1 among samples. The alignment of the sequences between Contracaecum larvae in current study with the previously reported reference gene sequences in the GenBank showed two distinct species. The first Contracaecum septentrionale recorded for the first time in Iraq and submitted to GenBank with the accession numbers MK424799.1, the second Contracaecum microcephalumsubmitted to GenBank with the accession numbers MK424795. The analysis of the ITS-1 data for Contracaecum larvae supported the distinction between species of Contracaecum larvae. Top Keywords Contracaecum, Larvae, ITS-1, Southern Iraq. Top |