Parasites in Stranded Cetaceans of Patagonia

BERÓN-VERA, B., E.A. CRESPO & J.A. RAGA.

JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY

AMER SOC PARASITOLOGISTS

Año: 2008 vol. 94 p. 946 - 948

0022-3395

There is an increasing interest in parasites of marine mammals of Argentina. Here, we examined several poorly known cetaceans: 3 spectacled porpoises and 1 Burmeister?s porpoise (Phocoenidae), 1 Gray?s beaked whale and 1 Cuvier?s beaked whale (Ziphidae) and we updated the parasite information of 1 sperm whale (Physeteridae). These hosts strand only occasionally. We found Anisakis simplex s.l., in 2 spectacled porpoises and the Burmeister?s porpoise, and we also recorded its distribution along the stomach chambers. A. physeteris infected the sperm whale; Corynosoma cetaceum, the duodenal ampulla of the Burmeister?s porpoise; C. australe the posteriormost region of the intestine of 1 spectacled porposie while another one had Tetrabothrius sp. in the anal crypts; and C. bullosum and Corynosoma sp., sperm whale. The only digenean found was Pholeter gastrophilus, parasitizing the Burmeister?s porpoise. Merocercoid Phyllobothrium delphini were present in the blubber of 1 spectacled porpoise, the sperm whale and the Gray?s beaked whale while Scolex pleuronectis infected the Gray?s beaked whale and 1 spectacled porpoise. No parasites were recovered from the Cuvier?s beaked whale. Poor parasite-species assemblages are consistently evidenced in marine mammals of Patagonia. Given the conservation status of these hosts, the limited parasitological information gathered, is valuable for conservation or management of these hosts in Patagonia.