The study describes a new species of Pallisentis Van Cleave, 1928 infecting the freshwater cat fish Wallago attu Bloch and Schneider, 1801 from Ropar wetland, Punjab, India. The morphological characters of Pallisentis roparensis include proboscis with 4 circles of 10 hooks each gradually declining in size, first circle of hooks <100 μm in length, 15-16 circles of Y-shaped collar spines and conical trunk spines present up to the posterior end in the females and the anterior region of cement gland in males. Saefftigen's pouch is present and cement gland nuclei are 22-25 in males. The sequences generated for 18S, 28S and ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 molecular markers of the newly described species are nested well among the other comparable sequences from the GenBank. The phylogenetic analyses show the monophyly of the genus Pallisentis but point towards the paraphyletic relationship among the three subgenera. The histopathology of fish intestine indicates that the parasite stimulates the inflammatory immune response causing serious injury to the mucosa and dilation of the lymphatic vessels of small intestine.

Sperata seenghala (Sykes, 1839) the Giant river-catfish, is one of the largest freshwater catfish of Indian sub-continent and commonly called as singhara and seenghala. Catfish is a favourite food fish due to its palatability with high nutritional value. S. seenghala (25-27 cm in length) were procured from Chamkaur Sahib, a sub divisional town in the district of Rupnagar in the Indian State of Punjab. Prominent pale, thread-like plasmodia of Hennegoides seenghalae n. sp. were observed on the gills and histological examination located them in the epithelial lining of the gill filament (Intrafilamental epithelial type, FE). The prevalence was 32% (12 fish were infected out of 37 examined). The total myxospore length of He. seenghalae was 46.6 μm with myxospore body length 7.5 μm strongly vaulted from one side with caudal appendage length of 39.1 (25.5-45) μm. The myxospores were closely compared morphologically with five known species of the genus from Indo-Malayan region and another recently reported from the USA. Molecular analysis based on 18S rDNA sequence (1947bp) indicated 80%-91% sequence similarity with other myxozoan parasites (Myxobolus, Henneguya, Hennegoides and Unicauda). The most closely related species was Hennegoides pangasii, and was placed with the present species in the same subclade. The present study is the first report the genus Hennegoides from India.