Despite considerable controversy concerning the taxonomy of species within the genus Spirometra, human sparganosis and spirometrosis mainly in Asia and Europe has long been confidently ascribed to Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. Recently, the mitochondrial genomes of purported “S. erinaceieuropaei”, “Spirometra decipiens” and “Spirometra ranarum” from Asia have been determined. However, it has been pointed out that the morphological criteria used for identifying these species are unsuitable and thus these identifications are questionable. In the present study, therefore, Spirometra samples from Asia were re-examined based on mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene sequences and the identification of these species was discussed. Haplotype network and phylogenetic analyses revealed that: i) two distinct Spirometra species, Type I and Type II, are present in Asia and neither of which is close to likely European “S. erinaceieuropaei”; ii) Type I is genetically diverse and widely distributed, however Type II is known so far from Japan and Korea; iii) “S. decipiens” and “S. ranarum” reported from Asia are conspecific with Type I; iv) Type I is probably conspecific with Spirometra mansoni, and Type II may represent an undescribed species.

尽管关于Spirometra属内物种的分类学引起了很大争议，但主要集中在亚洲和欧洲的人类斯巴球菌病和spirometrosis早已被确信归因于Spirometra erinaceieuropaei。最近，已经确定了来自亚洲的据称“ S. erinaceieuropaei ”，“ Spirometra decipiens ”和“ Spirometra ranarum ”的线粒体基因组。但是，已经指出，用于鉴定这些种类的形态学标准是不合适的，因此这些鉴定是有问题的。因此，在本研究中，基于线粒体细胞色素c重新检查了来自亚洲的Spirometra样品氧化酶亚基1基因序列和这些物种的鉴定进行了讨论。单倍型网络和系统发育分析表明：i）亚洲存在两种不同的螺旋藻种类，即I型和II型，它们都不与可能的欧洲“ S. erinaceieuropaei ”接近。ii）I型是遗传多样性且分布广泛的，但是II型迄今仍不为日本和韩国所知；iii）亚洲报告的“ S. decipiens ”和“ S. ranarum ”与I型同种；iv）I型可能与曼氏螺旋藻同种，而II型可能代表未描述的物种。