Between 1989 and 1998, 3,504 rodents of the genera Dipodomys and Perognathus were collected from 4 permanent collecting sites on the University of New Mexico's Long Term Ecological Research station, located on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR), Socorro County. New Mexico. All animals were killed and examined for endoparasites (acanthocephalans, cestodes, coccidia, and nematodes). Th...

A multitude of parasites have been reported in fish, but only a few species are capable of infecting humans. The most important of the helminths acquired by humans from fish are the anisakid nematodes (particularly Anisakis simplex and Pseudoterranova decipiens), cestodes of the genus Diphyllobothrium and digenetic trematodes of the families Heterophyidae, Opisthorchiidae and Nanophyetidae. Sea...

Molecular and morphological data regarding the relationships among the three classes of Rotifera (Bdelloidea, Seisonidea, and Monogononta) and the phylum Acanthocephala are inconclusive. In particular, Bdelloidea lacks molecular-based phylogenetic appraisal. I obtained coding sequences from the mitochondrial genomes of twelve bdelloids and two monogononts to explore the molecular phylogeny of B...

Species identification is crucial for studies of parasite diversity, yet most surveys include taxa identified only to genus or family level. Using a large dataset comprising 950 surveys of helminth communities from 650 different species of fish, bird and mammal hosts, we investigated what determines the level of taxonomic resolution achieved. Identification of all helminths down to species leve...

Besides presenting zoonotic potential, helminths of cats are responsible for gastrointestinal, hepatic, and pulmonary diseases. In order to identify the helminthic fauna, prevalence, mean intensity of parasitism (MIP), and mean abundance population (MAP), 146 cats from the metropolitan area of Cuiabá, Midwestern Brazil, were necropsied. In 98 these animals, 12 species of helminths were identifi...

Adult females of a predatory fish, the blackfin icefish, Chaenocephalus aceratus examined at the South Shetland Islands and South Orkney Islands were by several orders of magnitude more infected with Acanthocephala than the males and immature females. Such phenomenon has not been observed in the neritic zone at South Georgia. Cystacanths of Corynosoma hamanni and Corynosoma pseudohamanni were t...

Life history trade-offs have often been assumed to be the consequence of restrictions in the availability of critical resources such as energy and nutrients, which necessitate the differential allocation of resources to costly traits. Here, we examined endocrine (testosterone) and health (parasite burdens) parameters in territorial and non-territorial New Zealand fur seal males. We documented i...

Helminths often occupy defined niches in the gut of their definitive hosts. In the dioecious acanthocephalans, adult males and females usually have similar gut distributions, but sexual site segregation has been reported in at least some species. We studied the intestinal distribution of the acanthocephalan Echinorhynchus borealis von Linstow, 1901 (syn. of E. cinctulus Porta, 1905) in its defi...

The metazoan parasite fauna of Hippoglossina macrops (n = 123) from northern Chile (30 degrees S) is quantitatively described for the first time, and the role of host age and sex was evaluated. Twelve parasite species were recovered, including 5 ectoparasites (2 Monogenea, 2 Copepoda and 1 Piscicolidae) and 7 endoparasites (1 Digenea, 3 Cestoda, 2 Acanthocephala, and 1 Nematoda). The copepod Ho...

The life history characteristics of hosts often influence patterns of parasite infection either by affecting the likelihood of parasite exposure or the probability of infection after exposure. In birds, migratory behavior has been suggested to affect both the composition and abundance of parasites within a host, although whether migratory birds have more or fewer parasites is unclear. To help a...