BACKGROUND: Monogenea van Beneden, 1858 is a group of parasitic flatworms, commonly found infecting bony fish. Several genera, such as Cichlidogyrus Paperna, 1960, are reported to include potential pathogenic species that can negatively impact aquaculture fish stocks. They can switch from introduced to native fish and vice versa. In Africa (and all over the world), fish species belonging to Cichlidae are often kept in aquaculture and represent a major source of food. Thus, research on the biodiversity and occurrence of monogenean species on these fish is of importance for aquaculture and conservation. The present study is a survey of the diversity of species of Cichlidogyrus in the south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on three cichlid species: Orthochromis sp. 'Lomami', Serranochromis cf. macrocephalus, and Tilapia sparrmanii Smith, 1840. METHODS: Specimens of Cichlidogyrus were isolated from the gills and mounted on glass slides with Hoyer's medium. The genital and haptoral hard parts were measured and drawn using interference contrast. RESULTS: In total, six species of Cichlidogyrus were found, all new to science: C. bulbophallus n. sp. and C. pseudozambezensis n. sp. on S. cf. macrocephalus, C. flagellum n. sp. and C. lobus n. sp. on T. sparrmanii, C. ranula n. sp. on S. cf. macrocephalus and Orthochromis sp. 'Lomami', and C. maeander n. sp. found on Orthochromis sp. 'Lomami' and T. sparrmanii. The first four species are considered to be strict specialists, C. ranula n. sp. an intermediate generalist and C. maeander n. sp. a generalist. These parasite species show morphological similarities to species found in the Lower Guinea and Zambezi ichthyofaunal provinces, which might be explained by past river capture events between river systems of the Congo Province and both these regions. CONCLUSIONS: Serranochromis cf. macrocephalus and Orthochromis sp. 'Lomami' can harbour respectively three and two species of Cichlidogyrus, all described in this study. Tilapia sparrmanii can harbour seven species, of which three are described in the present study. These results highlight the species diversity of this parasite genus in the Congo Basin.

Department of Biology Royal Museum of Central Africa Tervuren Belgium

ISEM Université de Montpellier CNRS IRD EPHE CIRAD INRAP Montpellier France Laboratory Biodiversity Ecology and Genome Research Centre Plant and Microbial Biotechnology Biodiversity and Environment Faculty of Sciences Mohammed 5 University Rabat Morocco

Laboratory of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Genomics Department of Biology University of Leuven Leuven Belgium Ichthyology Section Zoology Department Royal Museum of Central Africa Tervuren Belgium

Research Group Zoology Biodiversity and Toxicology Centre for Environmental Sciences Hasselt University Diepenbeek Belgium

Research Group Zoology Biodiversity and Toxicology Centre for Environmental Sciences Hasselt University Diepenbeek Belgium Zoology Unit Finnish Museum of Natural History University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland Department of Botany and Zoology Faculty of Science Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic Laboratory of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Genomics Department of Biology University of Leuven Leuven Belgium

Section de Parasitologie Département de Biologie Centre de Recherche en Hydrobiologie Uvira Democratic Republic of the Congo

Unité de recherche en Biodiversité et Exploitation durable des Zones Humides Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques Université de Lubumbashi Lubumbashi Democratic Republic of the Congo

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