Preliminary report on the intestinal parasites and their diversity in captive Chinese alligators

Although intestinal parasites are commonly detected in either wild or farmed crocodiles in other parts of the world, yet few reports have ever been on the captive bred Chinese alligators (Alligator sinensis) since they are only distributed in the southern areas of the Yangtze River. The current work was undertaken to investigate the intestinal parasites and their diversity in the Chinese crocodilian species.

In May and October of 2013, we randomly collected a total of 328 fecal samples of the captive Chinese alligators in a breeding centre in south Anhui province.

Three genera of protozoa (Entaoeba, Eimeria and Isospora), five genera of nematodes (Ascaris, Dujardinascaris, Capillaria, Toxocara and Strongylus), two genera of trematodes (Echinostoma and Clonorchis) and two families of trematodes (Schistosomatidae and Cryptogonimidae) were identified, in which Dujardinascaris was the most prevalent and led to the highest infection rate (14.33%), and Entaoeba ranked the second (13.11%). The number of species, richness index, diversity index and evenness index were higher in July and August, and those indexes were relatively most in juvenile and subadult alligators.

Our findings suggest that the intestinal parasites infection was prevalent in captive Chinese alligators, and this condition requires our attention, whatever it is for controlling or preventing the intestinal parasitic disease from spreading to humans or conservation of this endangered species.