Helminth parasites of the mallard <i>Anas platyrhynchos</i> from Eastern Austria

Author(s)

Franz Jirsa, Susanne Reier, Lesley Smales

Abstract

Although the mallard is the most abundant water bird species in Eastern Austria a record of its helminth community is still missing. This work therefor aimed to close this gap and tried to record and analyse the parasite community of a greater number of Anas platyrhynchos from Austria for the first time. A total of 60 specimens of the mallard, shot by hunters in fall of 2009 in Eastern Austria were examined for intestinal parasites. The following taxa could be recovered (prevalences given in parenthesis): Cestoda: Diorchis acuminatus (31.7%) and Fimbriarioides intermedia (1.7%), Acanthocephala : Filicollis anatis (5%), Polymorphus minutus (30%) and one cyctacanth unidentified (1.7%), Trematoda: Apatemon gracilis (3.3%), Echinostoma grandis (6.7%), Echinostoma revolutum (6.7%) and Notocotylus attenuates (23.3%), Nematoda: Porrocaecum crassum (1.7%) and one not identified (1.7%). P. minutus was observed in high morphological variability, which gave reason for a molecular genetic characterization by DNA barcoding. Species identification was confirmed by comparing data with the reference COI sequence from P. minutus available in GenBank. The frequency distribution of parasites shows a typical pattern (Figure1), in which 39 birds (65%) were not parasitized or were harboring up to 5 worms, whereas more intense infestations occurred in a lesser number of hosts.

Organisation(s)

Department of Inorganic Chemistry

External organisation(s)

Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHM), South Australian Museum

Pages

32

Publication date

11-2017

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

303023 Parasitology, 104023 Environmental chemistry

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/helminth-parasites-of-the-mallard-anas-platyrhynchos-from-eastern-austria(0380103f-7345-4aad-93fb-b15ff42f7618).html