Abstract: In the present study, 10 capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) were necropsied, and their parasitological fauna were qualitatively analyzed from the Baía River, which belongs to the upper Paraná River floodplain, Brazil. Capybaras are the largest extant rodents and widely occur in Brazil. A parasitological evaluation is important for knowing the parasites that use this rodent as a definitive or intermediate host and to analyze the potential risks of these parasites to the human population (public health interest) or as commercial herbs (economic interest). The endoparasites here registered, with their respective percent occurrence, include the digeneans Hippocrepis hippocrepis and H. fuelleborni (20% each), Philophthalmus lachrymosus (10%), and Taxorchis schistocotyle (100%); the cestodes Monoecocestus macrobursatus (50%), M. hydrochaeri (70%), Monoecocestus sp. (10%), and one species of the Anoplocephalidae (10%); and the nematodes Protozoophaga obesa (100%) and Strongyloides sp. (10%). Because of tourism use of the study area, the zoonotic potential of some of these parasites, and the possibility of infecting livestock animals, the presence of these parasites should be monitored to evaluate if the insertion and maintenance of these animals in ecological association with humans (i.e., synanthropy) might foster public health problems or economic losses or whether there might be a viable situation.
Key Words: diversity, mammal, parasites, tropical, zoonosis, wildlife, capybaras, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris
Document type: Research article
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1578/AM.41.2.2015.213
Page Numbers: 213-221