Morphological and molecular data for two <i>Plagiorchis</i> species (Trematoda: Plagiorchiidae) from the southern Far East of Russia

Adult trematodes of two species of the genus <i>Plagiorchis</i> were found in the southern Far East of Russia: one species in the intestine of a naturally infected Japanese large-footed bat (<i>Myotis macrodactylus</i>) and the other in a golden hamster (<i>Mesocricetus auratus</i>) experimentally infected with metacercariae collected from a stonefly. On the basis of morphological and molecular studies, the trematode individuals found in the bat were identified as <i>Plagiorchis koreanus</i>, which confirms that this species is cosmopolitan. The trematodes reared in the hamster were similar in their morphological features to the European <i>Plagiorchis eutamiatis.</i> However, due to the lack of nucleotide sequences for this species from the type region, the southern Far East of Russia trematodes, found in this study, were provisionally designated as <i>Plagiorchis cf. eutamiatis.</i> In addition, the phylogenetic reconstruction based on a mitochondrial marker revealed inconsistency of the data obtained from cercariae diagnosed as a single species, <i>Plagiorchis elegans.</i> Our data also indicate that the specimens available in the NCBI database referred to as <i>Plagiorchis multiglandularis</i> and <i>Plagiorchis neomidis</i> belong to the same species.