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Acrossocheilus spinifer sp. nov. is described from the river basins in Fujian Province and the Han Jiang basin in Guangdong Province, south China. It is one of the barred Acrossocheilus species sharing five or six vertical bars on the flanks, with each bar being two scales in width. Acrossocheilus spinifer sp. nov. is morphologically most similar to Acrossocheilus wenchowensis, but distinguished from it by: a colour pattern of all vertical bars extending ventrally to the second scale row below the lateral line, and having the second bar placed posterior to the base of the last simple dorsal-fin ray, a blunt snout; and a stout, last simple dorsal-fin ray. Acrossocheilus spinifer sp. nov. resembles Acrossocheilus kreyenbergii and Acrossocheilus stenotaeniatus with which it shares a stout, last simple dorsal-fin ray with a serrated posterior edge, but is separated from both species by having a narrow median interruption in the lower lip, a lower jaw fully covered by the lower lip when viewed ventrally and the second vertical bar placed posterior to the base of the last simple dorsal-fin ray. The absence of a longitudinal stripe extending along the lateral line on the flanks in males readily distinguishes A. spinifer sp. nov. from four other species, namely Acrossocheilus fasciatus, Acrossocheilus paradoxus, Acrossocheilus parallens, and Acrossocheilus jishouensis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virus isolates were obtained from three Malvastrum coromandelianum plants showing vein thickening symptoms in Fujian Province, China. A fragment of approximately 500 bp was amplified from all the samples by PCR using the special degenerate primer pair PA/PB for begomoviruses. Sequence differences among the partial DNA-A fragments revealed that all three samples contained two virus isolates. Isolate I and isolate II share the highest nucleotide sequence identity (98–99%), respectively, with Malvastrum leaf curl Guangdong virus (MLCuGdV) and Ageratum yellow vein virus (AYVV). The complete nucleotide sequences of Fs1 and Fs2 isolates representing each virus were determined to be 2741 and 2756 nucleotides, respectively. Alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that the complete DNA-A sequences of Fs1 and Fs2 were most closely to those of MLCuGdV (AM503104) and AYVV (AB100305), with 90.4% and 93.3% nucleotide sequence identity, respectively. Fs1 and Fs2 are considered therefore to be isolates of MLCuGdV and AYVV, respectively. This is the first report of AYVV in M. coromandelianum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]