Helminth infracommunities of Podarcis pityusensis and Podarcis lilfordi (Sauria: Lacertidae) from the Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean basin)

Abstract

A survey of the helminth communities of Podarcis pityusensis (Boscá, 1883) and Podarcis lilfordi (Günther, 1874) (Sauria: Lacertidae) from the Pityusic and Gimnesic islands, respectively, in the Balearic Islands, Spain, was conducted. Both host species harbour similar though not identical helminth infracommunities. An analysis of the patterns of diversity for all helminths revealed that both lizards have depauperate isolationist infracommunities, possibly as a result of factors such as host ectothermy, the simplicity of their digestive canal, low vagility, and generalist feeding.

The helminth fauna of Apathya cappadocica (Werner, 1902) (Anatolian Lizard) (Squamata: Lacertidae) from Turkey

“…This agrees with the typical pattern of helminth infection in many reptiles, i.e. few species occur frequently, few species occur with moderate prevalence, and many species are rare (Aho 1990;Roca & Hornero 1994). Although several recent ecological studies are available on helminth communities of reptiles (Dobson et al, 1992), there is a paucity of data on the structure of the helminth communities of European reptiles (Roca & Homero, 1994;Roca, 1995;Sanchis et al, 2000).…”

Helminth fauna of Lebanon Lizard,Phoenicolacerta laevis(Gray, 1838), (Squamata: Lacertidae) from Southern Turkey

“…(metacercariae) Species of Brachylaima are parasites that often exhibit a triheteroxenous terrestrial life cycle in which molluscs serve as fi rst and second intermediate hosts and amphibians and reptiles may harbor unencysted metaceraria, before reaching the defi nitive hosts, birds and mammals. Adults are parasites of the small intestine of birds and mammals (Yamaguti, 1958) metacercaria in Reptilia , Roca & Hornero, 1994Galdon et al, 2006;Roca et al, 2006). We found this species in only one infected host lizard (3 %) from Hatay province.…”

“…Across the world, there are several studies on helminth fauna of some Lacertid lizards especially from Palearctic region. These species and localities are; Lacerta agilis from Poland (Lewin, 1992a) and Zootaca vivipara (Lewin, 1992b), Lacerta agilis from Palaearctic (Sharpilo et al, 2001); Lacerta viridis from Bulgaria (Biserkov & Kostadinova, 1998); Lacerta viridis and Podarcis muralis from Bulgaria (Kirin, 2002), Podarcis pityusensis from Spain (Hornero & Roca, 1992), Lacerta schreiberi from Spain (Roca & Ferragut, 1989); Podarcis pityusensis and Podarcis lilfordi from Spain (Roca & Hornero, 1994), Lacertidae family from Spain (Roca & Lluch, 1988), Lacerta agilis from Romania (Mihalca et al, 2007), Podarcis bocagei and Podarcis carbonelli from Portugal , Zootaxa vivipara from Spain (Sanchis et al, 2000), Gallotia caesaris gomerae and Gallotia caesaris caesaris from Spain (Martin & Roca, 2004), Podarcis vaucheri from Algeria (Carretero et al, 2011). There are some helminth parasite studies in Turkey especially for lacertid lizards.…”

Seven new species of helminths for reptiles from Armenia

“…Prevalence of infection according to our data is 12.5%, intensity 15-20. Nematotaenia tarentolae (Lopez-Neyra, 1944) previously was found in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Spain, Italy and France (Sharpilo, 1973;Roca, 1994). Hosts are Lacerta agilis and rock lizards of genus Darevskia.…”