The gastrointestinal helminths of Rattus spp. from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia with comments on the genera Cyclodontostomum (Chabertiidae) and Spirosprattus (Spirocercidae)

ABSTRACT

Two individuals of Rattus elaphinus Sody, 1941, one R. feliceus Thomas, 1920 and three R. tanezumi Temminck, 1844 collected from the Moluccas, Maluku Province, Indonesia were examined and 11 nematodes identified at least to genus were recovered. Those from R. feliceus and R. elaphinus were new host and locality records, and those from R. tanezumi new locality records. Eleven individuals of R. vandueseni (Taylor & Calaby, 1982) collected from Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea were examined and an acanthocephalan and 10 species of nematode, 6 identified to at least genus were recovered. All were new host records. The following taxa were recovered: Nippostrongylus brasiliensis (Travassos, 1914), Nippostrongylus spp., a nippostrongylin sp., Heterakis spumosa Schneider, 1886, Mastophorus muris (Gmelin, 1790), Protospirura muricola Godölst, 1916, Spirosprattus scyphiformis Smales, 2004 and Strongyloides sp. from the Indonesian hosts; Capillaria s.l., Cyclodontostomum purvisi Adams, 1933, Heterakis sirawii Smales, 2016, nippostrongylin spp., Protospirura kaindiensis Smales, 2001, P. muricola, Toxocara sp. and Trichuris muris (Schrank, 1788) from the Papua New Guinean hosts. The helminth assemblage of R. vandeuseni was dominated by H. sirawii (54% prevalence) and C. purvisi (45% prevalence).

KEYWORDS:

• Acanthocephala
• Moniliformis
• Nematoda
• Capillaria
• Cyclodontostomum
• Heterakis
• Nippostrongylus
• Mastophorus
• Protospirura
• Spirosprattus
• Toxocara
• Trichuris
• Muridae
• Rattus elaphinus
• Rattus feliceus
• Rattus tanezumi
• Rattus vandeuseni
• Moluccas
• Papua New Guinea

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks go to Tim Flannery, Trish Ennis and Stephen Keable of the Australian Museum for making the hosts available for dissection and to Sandy Ingleby for confirmation of host identification. My thanks also to the reviewers who kindly helped by providing the correct citations for some of the 19^th century references. Librarians from Central Queensland University provided Document Delivery Services.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).