The viviparous gyrodactylid genus Macrogyrodactylus Malmberg, 1957 is endemic to Africa, composed of nine species from hosts of four freshwater fish families, including catfishes (Siluriformes: Clariidae). Three species, Macrogyrodactylus clarii Gussev, 1961; M. congolensis (Prudhoe, 1957) and M. karibae Douëllou et Chishawa, 1995, are primarily known to parasitise the African sharptooth catfish Clarias gariepinus (Burchell) in various African countries. From November 2017 to September 2019, a total of 184 individuals of C. gariepinus were collected from selected localities in southern Africa and their skin, fins and gills were surveyed for monogeneans. Three species of Macrogyrodactylus (M. clarii, M. congolensis and M. karibae) were found parasitising C. gariepinus from five localities in South Africa and Zambia. Overall prevalence was 50% to 100% with intensities of up to 109 parasites per host individual. New locality records in southern Africa, morphological observations and additional molecular data on the complete Internal Transcriber Spacer (ITS-1-5.8S-ITS-2) regions of the rDNA gene for the three gyrodactylid species are presented in this study.
Pigeon, doves and songbirds are hosts of the parasite Trichomonas gallinae (Rivolta, 1878), which causes avian trichomonosis. Raptors are infected when they digest infected prey. A high percentage of the diet of Eurasian sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus (Linnaeus) is comprised of birds. During the breeding season 2012 and 2013, we clinically tested 298 nestling Eurasian sparrowhawks from urban and rural areas of the Czech Republic for the presence of trichomonads. Sparrowhawk nestlings in the urban area were more infected (32.9%) than in the rural area (12.2%) in 2012 (χ2 = 6.184, P = 0.045). The number of infected nestlings dropped in the urban area (5.4%) and remained similar in the rural area (16.6%) in 2013. Sequences of ITS region and SSU rDNA confirmed that the isolates from infected sparrowhawk nestlings belonged to Trichomonas gallinae., Tomáš Kunca, Pavla Smejkalová, Ivan Čepička., and Obsahuje bibliografii