background: this study was conducted to collect informative data on the parasitic infection of wild rodents, emphasizing on finding parasites, which have medical importance to human. methods:   during 2012-2014, a total number of 91 wild rodents were captured from rural areas of turkmen sahra, golestan province, using handmade traps. animals were anesthetized, surveyed for any ectoparasite and ...

Bartonella spp. are fastidious, gram-negative, rod-shaped bacteria and are usually vector-borne. However, the vector has not been definitively identified for many recently described species. In northern California, gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) are infected with two zoonotic Bartonella species, B. rochalimae and B. vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii. Fleas (range 1-8 fleas per fox) were collect...

Watson (1967) has shown that the synonym Lepismodes iniquilinus Newman has priority over Tliermobia domestica (Packard), but to avoid confusion in the present context the junior synonym as used previously is retained throughout this paper. The ability of Tliermobia to take up water from subsaturated atmospheres down to 45% relative humidity (R.H.) at 21 C. has been demonstrated in an earlier pa...

Male-biased parasitism is commonly found in higher vertebrates and is most likely to be a result of higher mobility and lower immunocompetence of male hosts than female hosts. The latter would result in higher fitness of parasites exploiting males rather than females. To test this hypothesis, we investigated foraging and reproductive performance of fleas (Xenopsylla ramesis) parasitizing male a...

Our study highlights the surveillance of Bartonella species among rodents and their associated ectoparasites (ticks, fleas, lice, and mites) in several regions across Thailand. A total of 619 rodents and 554 pooled ectoparasites (287 mite pools, 62 flea pools, 35 louse pools, and 170 tick pools) were collected from 8 provinces within 4 regions of Thailand. Bandicota indica (279), Rattus rattus ...

Reproduction is an energy-demanding activity in mammalian females, with increased energy requirements during pregnancy and, especially, during lactation. To better understand the interactions between parasitism and host reproduction, we investigated feeding and reproductive performance of fleas (Xenopsylla ramesis) parasitizing non-reproducing, pregnant or lactating gerbilline rodents (Meriones...