Using passive hair traps to obtain genetic material from wild mammals is an effective form of testing the abundance of animal populations. Based on genetic analysis of collected hair, it is possible to estimate the number and sex of individuals present in a given area. The aim of this study was to confirm the success of the method of collecting hair from beavers in a non-invasive way, as well as to determine the effectiveness of using passive hair traps as sampling tools that can be applied in different regions. The study was carried out in the area of Stobrawa Landscape Park (southwestern Poland) between December 2017 and May 2018. For 17 control days, 12 samples were obtained, which gave the result of 0.7 samples per control day. This study shows that the proposed method, due to its simplicity and efficiency, could be a cost-effective way of collecting hair from free-ranging beavers without the need for capturing individuals.
South African clinids are a major component of the temperate intertidal regions that are also known to participate in life cycles and transmission of several groups of parasites. However, the knowledge of trematode diversity of these fishes is incomplete. In this study, two species of Clinus Cuvier, the super klipfish Clinus superciliosus (Linnaeus) and the bluntnose klipfish Clinus cottoides Valenciennes, were collected from six localities along the South African coast and examined for the presence of trematodes. Metacercariae of Cardiocephaloides Sudarikov, 1959 were found in the eye vitreous humour and brain of C. superciliosus and in the eye vitreous humour of C. cottoides. Detailed analyses integrating morphological and molecular sequence data (28S rDNA, ITS2 rDNA-region, and COI mtDNA) revealed that these belong to two species, Cardiocephaloides physalis (Lutz, 1926) and an unknown species of Cardiocephaloides. This study provides the first report of clinid fishes serving as intermediate hosts for trematodes, reveals that the diversity of Cardiocephaloides in South Africa is higher than previously recorded, and highlights the need for further research to elucidate the life cycles of these trematode species. The broad geographical distribution of Cardiocephaloides spp. was confirmed in the present study based on molecular sequence data. The host-parasite interactions between clinid fishes and metacercariae of Cardiocephaloides are yet to be explored.