Levantamento comparativo da incidência de helmintos das aves do parque zoobotânico do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi de acordo com as estações seca e chuvosa

Abstract

Of the thousands of existing helminth species, many have been recognized in wild and domestic birds. Although the helminth fauna in birds is quite diverse, its study in the Amazon region is restricted to occurrence data. The purpose of this study is to inventory the helminths of wild bird species in the collection of the Zoological Park of the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará, establishing the degree of incidence of helminths in birds according to the dry and rainy seasons, using coprological examination. Faeces were collected from September to November 1997 and January to March 1998. The study used 17 species of birds belonging to 8 families. Of the 17 host species, six (35.3%) were positive for helminth eggs, represented by the families Ramphastidae, Psittacidae, Threskiornithidae, Eurypygidae and Psophiidae. Five (29.4%) presented simple infection and one (5.9%) mixed infection. In the dry season, of the 17 stool samples collected, only two species were positive for eggs of the Capillaria helminth genus and one species was positive for eggs of the Prosthogonimus genus. In the rainy season, with the same number of samples, five species of birds were positive, two for eggs of Capillaria, two for eggs of Heterakis, and one for eggs of Heterakis and Prosthogonimus. Analyzing the incidence of helminths, we observed that of the nine positive samples (26.5%), five were represented by Capillaria eggs (55.5%), two by Heterakis eggs (22.2%), and one by Prosthogonimus eggs (11.1%). A comparison with data from Cortês (1993) on environmental factors as determinants of disease, allows us to conclude that there is a climatic influence on helminth proliferation.