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Previous studies had associated nematodes with manatee skin. One in 2011 described an “extraordinarily” long-tailed diplogastric nematode, Cutidiplogaster manati, found in skin lesions on West Indian manatees in an aquarium in Okinawa, Japan. This piqued the interest of these authors, who hoped to learn more about C. manati. In 2013, they began collecting samples from Florida manatees in the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, and the project became Mr. Gonzalez’s master’s thesis.
The team found what was probably C. manati – and two other nematodes.
Mr Gonzalez, working alongside researchers doing an annual manatee health assessment, collected dead skin from tails out of seven of the mammals in 2018 and another seven in 2019. The collection process is comparable to a human scratch, and the animals are quickly released, Mr Gonzalez said, to minimize stress.
The samples were examined under a microscope and then their DNA was extracted. The new nematodes had big teeth – perhaps for eating other nematodes, or for “something delicate” like splitting open diatomaceous algae and consuming their insides, said Robin Giblin-Davis, a recently retired nematologist at the University of Florida and co-author of the study. The team speculates that C. manati and one of the others, a previously unidentified species they called “Long Tail,” could use its long tail to anchor itself in the waves.
Although more work is needed for the formal description of the species of the two new nematodes, “I think you could easily say that these are new species,” said Adler Dillman, associate professor at the University of California. in Riverside, which did not participate in the study.
The study suggests that nematodes are specially adapted to thrive in this decaying micro-landscape, where structures on the skin are said to be as tall for them as trees are for humans. All three manatee nematodes were found on all manatees sampled in 2018 and 2019, but no skin lesions were found; the authors concluded that the nematodes were unlikely to injure their hosts. Perhaps, they suggested, they passed between manatees like mites of human skin.
For now, researchers hope to generate more enthusiasm for the nematodes as well as their gentle manatee hosts.
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