New species of Oswaldocruzia parasites of small intestines of vaillantii Boulenger, 1882 (Anura: ) from de National Forest of Caxiuanã, Pará, Brazil

Yuri Willkens de Oliveira Costa¹; Luiz Paulo da Silva Almeida²; Adriano Penha Furtado¹; Jeannie Nascimento dos Santos¹; Francisco Tiago de Vasconcelos Melo¹

¹Universidade Federal do Pará – UFPA (Belém) ²Faculdade Integrada Brasil Amazônia – FIBRA (Belém)

Phyllomedusa vaillantii Boulenger, 1882 also known as White-lined Leaf , is an arboreal and nocturnal species of that belongs to the family . These are found on trees and vegetation near streams or permanent waterbodies in tropical rainforest. The males vocalizes and call on leaves above ponds, where the females lay their eggs in gelatinous masses on folded leaves above the water, where the tadpoles fall after hatching. This species occurs in many countries of the neotropical region, being widely distributed across the Amazon Basin. The great diversity of foraging sites, trophic relationships and reproductive modes make the ’ excellent models for studying patterns and processes that influence parasitic communities. Among the invertebrate parasites of amphibians, the helminths are the most common group, being represented by trematodes, cestodes, acanthocephalans and nematodes, which are particularly abundant in the digestive tract, lungs and blood vessels. Oswaldocruzia is a of nematodes parasites of the small intestines of amphibians and reptiles that includes approximately 88 species worldwide distributed. From those, 39 species occur on the Neotropical region and 30 have been described in the South America. The present study describes a new species of Oswaldocruzia found on the small intestines of P. vaillantii from de National Forest of Caxiuanã, Pará, Brazil. During March of 2014 and April of 2015, 17 specimens of P. vaillantii were captured and necropsied during an expedition to Caxiuanã. The parasites found were rinsed in saline solution and fixed on heated 70% ethanol. The nematodes were clarified in lactophenol and mounted on temporary slides for light microscopy analysis. The helminths of the present study possess a club-shaped esophagus, a cephalic vesicle divided into two portions, mouth with three indistinct labia, cuticle with small transverse striations and longitudinal ridges along the body and cephalic alae are absent. The females have a well- developed ovojector, with an amphidelphic uterus, the vulva is located in the posterior half of the body and a simple tail that ends with a cuticle spine. The males have a type II caudal bursa that is trilobulated and supported by muscular rays in a patterns 2-1-2. The spicules are robust, covered by a hyaline membrane and divided in three parts, the “shoe”, the “fork” and the “blade” that is divided distally in 3-7 processes. From the 30 South American species, only three presents a type II copulatory bursa. From these, Oswaldocruzia n. sp. differs from O. neghmei that has a bifurcate spicule, O. brasiliensis that has a spatulate spicule blade and the remaining congener O. bonsi by the number of processes in blade and all morphometric characters. In conclusion, all the morphologic data suggests that the nematodes parasites of P. vaillantii may be included in a new species of the genus Oswaldocruzia. However, we will need additional SEM analysis and molecular data for a complete description.

Keywords: Amazon, Caxiuanã, Phyllomedusa vaillantii, Oswaldocruzia