Morphological and molecular characterization of

The pool barb, Puntius sophore Hamilton, 1822, is a tropical freshwater cyprinid fish native to inland waters in Asia. Herein, a novel myxozoan from plasmodia on the caudal fin of P. sophore from Ranjit Sagar Wetland in Punjab, India is described. Myxospores were consistent with the genus Myxobolus, ellipsoidal in frontal view, lemon-shaped in lateral view; length 7.76 ± 0.28 µm, width 5.36 ± 0.15 µm. There were two polar capsules of unequal size: a larger polar capsule, length 3.01 ± 0.08 µm, width 1.83 ± 0.11 µm, with 6-7 turns of the polar filament, and a smaller polar capsule, length 1.71 ± 0.15 µm, width 0.94 ± 0.07 µm, with 3-4 turns of the polar filament. The 1183 bp 18S rDNA sequence was up to 95% similar to Myxobolus spp. from other cyprinid fishes in India. Given the novel host, unique myxospore morphology, and 18S rDNA sequence, we propose Myxobolus puntiusii n. sp.