First report of a species of Folliculovarium Gu and Shen, 1983 (Bucephalidae: Prosorhynchinae) from European marine waters, with the description of F. mediterraneum n. sp.

Folliculovarium mediterraneum n. sp. is described and figured in detail from the intestine of the Mediterranean moray eel Muraena helena (Muraenidae) in the Scandola Nature Reserve, off Corsica in the Western Mediterranean. This new species closely resembles F. gymnothoracis Gu and Shen, 1983 and F. xishaense Gu and Shen, 1983 from marine fishes off China, but it may differ from both in not having specialised circum-rynchal spines. It differs from the former by having slightly larger eggs and a longer oesophagus, and from F. xishaense by having tegumental spines, a longer oesophagus and a non-related host (an eel rather than a serranid). The status of Folliculovarium, which was recently treated as a genus inquirendum by Overstreet and Curran (2002), is clarified by its multilobed rather than follicular ovary and other features, and remains in the Prosorhynchinae (Bucephalidae).