Gastro-Intestinal Parasites of Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus Linnaeus, 1758) in and Around Chitwan National Park, Nepal
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Department of Zoology
Abstract
Asian elephant is an endangered species in Nepal and its numbers are declining day by
day. Present study was conducted to assess the prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites in
Asian elephant in and around the Chitwan National Park. A total of 20 dung samples from
wild elephants were collected by opportunistically from Chitwan National Park whereas
as a total of 80 dung samples were collected from 40 captive/domestic elephants by the
duplicate sampling technique with interval of 15 days in the month of May 2017. The
collected dung samples were preserved in 2.5% potassium dichromate and
microscopically examined using the direct smear method and concentration methods.
Prevalence of protozoan and helminthes parasites was found to be 90% and 57% in wild
and captive/domestic elephants respectively. In both wild and captive/domestic elephants,
one protozoan parasite was reported: Eimeria sp. with 15% and 7.5% respectively.
Among the helminthes parasites, one genus of cestode was reported from wild elephants:
Anoplocephala sp. (10%) but was not found in captive/domestic elephant. Eight different
genera of nematodes were identified in wild elephants (Ascaris sp. (45%), Strongyloide
sp. (85%), Haemonchus sp. (25%), Trichostrongylus sp. (10%), Dromeostrongylus sp.
(30%), Chabertia sp. (15%), Bunostomum sp. (10%), and Nematodirus sp. (10%) whereas
four different genera of nematodes were identified in captive/domestic elephants (Ascaris
sp. (27.5%), Strongyloide sp. (52.5%), Haemonchus sp. (7.5%), Bunostomum sp. (2.5%).
No trematode was reported from the both wild and captive/domestic elephants. Location
wise analysis suggested the higher prevalence of gastrointestinal parasite in dung samples
collected from Chure area (30%) where as it was found higher from the Khorsar breeding
center (15%) and Tiger Tops Tharu Lodge (15%) in captive/ domestic elephant. Mixed
infection was reported in wild elephant with double (35%), triple (40%) and multiple
infections (15%) but no single infection. However, in case of captive/domestic elephant’s
single infection (32.50%) was reported with some mixed infection such double (17.50%)
and multiple infections (7.50%). Intensity of parasites suggested that the light infection is
prevalent than that of heavy infection in both cases. Comparing the morphologically
similar parasites, the statistical analysis showed that there was significant difference in
the prevalence of parasites among the wild and captive/domestic elephants (χ
xii
2
= 5.0931,
P-value= 0.02). However, the parasites such as Dromeostrongylus sp., Nematodirus sp.,
Chabertia sp., Trichostrongylus sp. and Anoplocephala sp. were only observed in wild
elephants.