Özet:

This study was carried out to determine the parasitic leech infections, and weight and some morphometric features of leech (Hirudinea) parasites on the fish species inhabiting the Kovada Canal that connect Egirdir and Kovada Lakes. A total of 337 fish specimens, belonging to six different species (Atherina boyeri Risso, 1810, Carassius gibelio (Bloch, 1782), Cyprinus carpio (Linnaeus, 1758), Pseudorasbora parva (Temminck & Schlegel, 1846), Sander lucioperca (Linnaeus, 1758) and Tinca tinca (Linnaeus, 1758)), were sampled for examine seasonally from October 2012 to November 2013. The mouth, skin, gills and fins of the fishes were examined and it was determined only Hemiclepsis marginata (OF Müller, 1774) on the 7 from 20 common carp (C. carpio) (prevalence: %35, mean intensity: 1, abundance: 0.35). The parasites were found in the pectoral fins, base of the pelvic and the anal fins, and the abdomen region. It could not determine any parasitic leech species without H. marginata in this study. The highest correlation was found between the total body length and the body length without the suckers (r: 0.998), and the lowest was found between the body length without suckers and the trachelosome width at the sucker junction (r: 0.653) in the examined H. marginata individuals. This study is the first report of H. marginata, the parasitic freshwater leech species, for the Mediterranean Region, Turkey.

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