New host and locality records for gastrointestinal helminths of five reptile species from the Mid North region of South Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Parasites in wildlife tend to be poorly studied in spite of the ecological roles they play, and even basic information such as the geographic distribution of the parasites and the hosts they infect or infest are not well known. For parasites that live within the host, part of the reason for this lack of information is that the hosts must be killed and dissected to determine which endoparasites they harbour, which has legal and/or ethical implications and limitations. These obstacles can be overcome by collecting and examining potential hosts that are found dead on roads or that are sacrificed as part of other non-related studies. In this study, our objective was to expand on our understanding of the gastrointestinal parasites of some common reptiles from an area in the vicinity of a study site in the Mid North region of South Australia by making use of snakes and large lizards that were found dead on roads or that were humanely killed for another study. Our study provides new locality and/or host species records for some parasite species.