What is it about?
Eastern rock sengis belong to the ancient order Macroscelidea. We present the first exhaustive assessment of their endoparasites endoparasites and provide a review of endoparasite species previously reported for the order. These comprise 11 endoparasite taxa, including 9 nematodes, 1 cestode family (Hymenolepididae), and 1 pentastomid species (Armillifer armillatus) with an overall prevalence of 100%.
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Why is it important?
This is the first exhaustive endoparasite assessment for the order Macroscelidea. The comparison with the endoparasite diversity reported for the entire order reveals that the endoparasite species richness for eastern rock sengis exceed that of the order, suggesting that it is likely to be understudied in other species. Also, there is a strong bias for studies from the only North African sengi species while all other sengis have a sub-Saharan distribution.
Perspectives
I feel that this was a long overdue study on a widespread sengi species. These animals belong to one of the oldest mammalian orders and or mostly studied for their physiology and taxonomy. However, since many species in this order are of conservation concern, I hope that this study will spark many follow up studies into their parasite community.
Dr Heike Lutermann
University of Pretoria
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Endoparasites of the Eastern Rock Sengi ( Elephantulus myurus ) from South Africa , Journal of Parasitology, December 2015, American Society of Parasitologists,
DOI: 10.1645/15-779.
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