Helminth Fauna of Bats of the Rostov Region: Review. 2. Cestoda

Introduction. The class Cestoda is divided into two subclasses: the Cestodaria — unsegmented tapeworms, and the Eucestoda — true cestodes. The representatives of the orders Pseudophyllidea and Cyclophyllidae, which are part of the subclass of true cestodes parasitize in carnivorous mammals. At the same time, only representatives of the latter order parasitize in chiropterans. Data on the species composition and distribution of cestodes in the Rostov region have not been published yet. The list of bat species living in the Rostov region have been compiled previously. In this article, the authors study the cestode fauna parasitizing in chiropterans in the region under study. This review aims to analyse the current state of knowledge about the species composition of helminths parasitizing in bats in the Rostov region.

Materials and Methods. The research materials have been obtained from the libraries and open access resources: PubMed (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), CyberLeninka (cyberleninka.ru), Google Scholar (scholar.google.com), BHL (www.biodiversitylibrary.org ), JSTOR (www.jstor.org), etc. Some data has been provided by the colleagues. Results. 17 species of cestodes of 4 genera, 1 family and 1 order can be found in 15 species of bats living in the Rostov region. Among them dominate the species of the genus Vampirolepis (11 species).

Discussion and Conclusion. The results of the review carried out showed that maximum diversity of cestodes was found in one species of bats — the serotine bat (10 species). The smallest number of cestode species (1 per each) was found in the giant and lesser noctules. None of the cestode species found in bats in the Rostov region were recorded in companion animals or humans. However, some cestode species of the Hymenolepididae family, common in rodents, can infect the humans.