Length-weight relationship of fishes from Anambra ... - Zoo-unn.org

Helminth fauna of Tadarida nigeriae66Table 1: Prevalence of helminth parasites in TadaridaSpecies of parasiteNumberofinfectedBatsPrevalenceof infection(%)TotalwormloadMeannumber ofworms perhostNematodesRictularia chaeraphoni 425 49.59 3846 9.05Histostrongylus coronatus 295 34.42 1415 4.80Capillaria annulosa 158 18.44 923 5.84Cheiropteronema globocephalus65 7.58 648 9.97Litosoma pujoli 45 5.25 92 2.04TrematodesPosthodendrium panouterus 30 3.50 266 8.87Castroia nyctali 22 2.56 64 2.91CestodesHymenolepis kerivoulae 15 1.75 29 1.93Oochoristica agamae 35 4.08 156 4.46Analysis: The isolated parasites were subjectedto analyses with Simpson’s index (C =ln (Y/N)),where Y = % hosts infected with each helminthspecies; and N = the sum of all Y values; andwas used to determine the dominant species.Fager’s index (Southwood, 1966) was used todetermine the level of association between theparasites. Sorensen’s Index was used to analysesimilarity of fauna in the study areas S = (2j/(An+ Bn) where An and Bn are the number ofspecies in areas A and B respectively, j is thenumber of helminth species common to bothareas (Greig-Smith, 1964).Table 2: Sorensen’s Indices of similarity usedto compare the helminth fauna from the bats indifferent townsTownsSorensen’sIndex ofsimilarityNsukka and Enugu Ezike 0.876Nsukka and Nnobi 0.561Nsukka and Nsugbe 0.379Enugu Ezike and Nnobi 0.581Enugu Ezike and Nsugbe 0.439Nnobi and Nsugbe 0.628CHRESULTSA total of 857 bats were examined theseconsisted of 429 males and 428 females. Theresult obtained showed that there is a richhelminth fauna in Tadarida. The frequency ofoccurrence of the helminth parasites was foundto show that Rictularia lucifigus is the dominantspecies. Altogether nine Parasites were isolatedand these are presented in Table 1 and Figures1 - 5. They include 5 nematodes (Rictulariachaeraphoni; Histostrongylus coronatus;Capillaria annulosa; Cheiropteronemaglobocephalus; Litomosa pujoli), 2. Trematodes(Posthodendrium) panouterus; Castroia nyctali),and 2 cestodes (Hymenolepis kerivoulae;Oochoristica agamae).The prevalence of these parasitesamong the examined bats is also shown inTable 1. A total of 658 bats were foundinfected with helminth parasites giving aprevalence rate of 76.78%. Examinations of themusculature and the blood show no helminthparasites.Whereas Rictularia is the mostcommon helminth parasite of these bats,BWPOEFigure 1: Head region ofHistostrongylus coronatusshowing BW – body wall,OE – oesophagus, P –pharynx and CH – crownof hooksCheiropteronema occurs with the highest meanworm load per host (9.97). The infected batshad between 2 to 9 helminth species. Analysisof the result using Simpson’s Index for all thehelminth species confirm that Rictularia (C=-0.39) is the dominant helminth species withinthe populations of Tadarida.