The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of metacercarial infection in plathyfish imported to Iran. A total of 100 imported live common platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus) from approximately 24 shipments were collected from a quarantine facility in Iran in 2007 and examined in our veterinary laboratory. Among 800 examined gill arches about 1300 cysts were found in different loc...

The presence of chitin in midgut structures of Callosobruchus maculatus larvae was shown by chemical and immunocytochemical methods. Detection by Western blotting of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) seed vicilins (7S storage proteins) bound to these structures suggested that C. maculatus-susceptible vicilins presented less staining when compared to C. maculatus-resistant vicilins. Storage proteins pr...

Hybridization is increasingly being recognized as a widespread process, even between ecologically and behaviorally divergent animal species. Determining phylogenetic relationships in the presence of hybridization remains a major challenge for evolutionary biologists, but advances in sequencing technology and phylogenetic techniques are beginning to address these challenges. Here we reconstruct ...

In 2014, infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus (ISKNV), a member of the genus Megalocytivirus, was detected for the first time in ornamental fish in Germany. Since 2013, angelfish Pterophyllum spp. originating from Colombia have experienced significant epizootics in a number of German retailers' facilities. The diseased fish showed symptoms such as increased ventilation, swollen gills, an...

Previous studies aimed at detecting costs of sexually selected traits have yielded mixed results partly because of variable methods. We present a novel approach: a repeated-measures design to examine individual variation in locomotor performance of male Xiphophorus hellerii as the sexually selected sword develops ontogenetically and to determine whether the growth of a sexually selected trait a...

background: the presence of pesticides is very prevalent in surface waters of iran due to their huge consumption for agricultural purpose. these toxic substances may accumulate in the food chain and cause serious ecological and health problems. chemical pesticides with persistent molecules (long half-life periods) pose a threat to aquatic life forms and the human population consuming the affect...

The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of metacercarial infection in plathyfish imported to Iran. A total of 100 imported live common platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus) from approximately 24 shipments were collected from a quarantine facility in Iran in 2007 and examined in our veterinary laboratory. Among 800 examined gill arches about 1300 cysts were found in different loc...