The life cycle of the cestode Echinococcus multilocularis primarily involves canids and small mammals (rodents, lagomorphs) as definitive and intermediate hosts, respectively. Several surveys have identified marked temporal and geographical variations at different scales in the parasite's prevalence in both types of hosts, suggesting variations in the biological and ecological factors that cont...

The life cycle of the nematode Angiostrongylus cantonensis involves rats as the definitive host and slugs and snails as intermediate hosts. Humans can become infected upon ingestion of intermediate or paratenic (passive carrier) hosts containing stage L3 A. cantonensis larvae. Here, we report a quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay that provides a reliable, relative measure of parasite load in intermed...

Studies on the life cycles and epizootiology of North American frog lung flukes indicate that most species utilize odonates as second intermediate hosts; adult frogs become infected by ingesting odonate intermediate hosts. Newly metamorphosed frogs are rarely infected with these parasites, predominantly because they are gape-limited predators that cannot feed on large intermediate hosts such as...

pachysentis canicola (meyer, 1931) is an acanthocephalan belonging to the class oligacanthorhynchida. these species parasitize canids and other carnivores as definitive hosts which are followed by ingestion of an infected arthropod as its biological intermediate host. we present here a natural occurrence of p. canicola in fox from iran with special attention to its morphological characteristics.