Colección Nacional de Parasitología (MACN-Pa)

ALEJANDRO TABLADO; FABIÁN G. TRICÁRICO

Guide to Helminthological Collections of Latin America

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y Fundación Museo de La Plata, Buenos Aires Argentina

Lugar: México Distrito Federal; Año: 2010; p. 1 - 66

PROLOGUEThe study of the helminth parasites of wild vertebrates in Latin America has along tradition; the contribution of researchers as Lauro Travassos, Adolpho Lutz, andJoão FerreiraTeixeira de Freitas in Brazil, Lothar Szidat and Margarita Ostrowski deNúñez in Argentina, Eduardo Caballero y Caballero and Margarita Bravo-Hollis inMexico, Carlos Díaz-Ungría in Venezuela, Rodrigo Brenes-Madrigal in Costa Rica,Nicanor Ibáñez and Manuel Tantalean in Peru, Idelfonso Pérez-Vigueras in Cuba, andFernando Mañé-Garzón in Uruguay, among others, was transcendental to theunderstanding of the biodiversity of this group of parasites. The first reference of ascientific collection in Latin America dates back from the early XX Century when theHelminthological Collection of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute was established in Brazil.Since then, many other helminthological collections were founded in several countriesof this region; however, their development has been uneven and some of them haveactually disappeared.The existence of these collections in one of the most species rich and diverseregions of the world is essential. The information contained in these biodiversityrepositories is invaluable, and their protection is responsibility of the institutions andgovernments of their countries of origin. However, the deposition of helminthspecimens collected in Latin America in foreign collections used to be a commonpractice, and unfortunately continues to be so to some extent, without taking intoconsideration the local or even national collections. The main reason for the prevalenceof this situation is probably the lack of knowledge about their existence or concernsabout the security conditions of the material.As a result of the meeting: ?Colecciones Helmintológicas de América Latina:estado actual y perspectivas? held in March, 26, 2009 in La Plata City, Argentina,representatives of collections from Argentina and Mexico, proposed the co-edition of adocument where the information related to helminth collections in Latin America wascompiled. In order to reach this goal, 13 institutions from nine countries were invited;the majority of them responded positively, and these contributions constitute the contentof this Guide. This first attempt of collective work has the main objective of disseminating theinformation among the international scientific community, presenting the developmentand conditions of the collections in this area, establishing them as real repositories ofspecimens from these and other regions.