Study of rodents ectoparasites in urban areas of mazandaran province in 1997-1999

Background and Çonsidering the role of rodents ectoparasites in transmission of different diseases such as, plaque, relapsing fever, typhus mureium, etc. Â study was done in different areas of mazandaran province in order to identify rodents ectoparasites. This was a descriptive study done on the rodents hunted from different areas of Sari, Behshar, Gaemshahr, Âmol, Mahmoud abad, Noor, Ramsar, Tonekabon and Suburban regions of the above mentioned cities up to the distance of 5 kilometers. The rodents were hunted by trap installed randomly in different areas. The hunted rodents were transferred to laboratory, anaesthetised and the morphological characteristics were recorded, kept on water container then the body surface was brushed, in this way the parasites came up to the water surface. The surface water was collected and kept in 70% alcohol, then mounted for identification of parasites. Âlso all the data concerning the rodent and parasite were recorded in questionnair and analyzed statistically. Ïn this study, 371 rodents belonging to 7 species were hunted as follow: Rattus rattus 148 (40%), Rattus norvegicus 87 (23%), Mus musculus 40 (11%), Glis glis 25(7%), Âpodemus sylvaticus 7(2%) Nesokia indica 43(12%), Ârvicola terrestis 19(5%). The isolated ectoparasites were as follow: Hoplopleuridae, Ëchinolaelaps echidninus, opiliacaridae, Rhipicephalus, N. faciatus and Ïxodidae, of which the most frequent rate of isolation belonged to Hoplopleuridae and the less frequent rate belonged to Ïxodidae.Çonclusion : The results of this study reveal that the rate of contamination with ectoparasites in the hunted rodents was 40%. Çontamination was observed in the species of Rattus rattus, Nesokia indica, Rattus norvegicus, and Ârvicola terrestris and all the isolated ectoparasites are important from medical and veterinary point of view.