L. Forró szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 8. 1993 (Budapest, 1993)

Kriska, T.: Parasitic helminths of house mouse (Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758) in Hungary

MISCELLANEA ZOOLOGICA HUNGARICA Tomus 8. 1993 p. 13-23 Parasitic helminths of house mouse (Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758) in Hungary by T.Kriska (Received May 4, 1993) Abstract Taxonomical and faunistical investigations of helminths parasitizing house mouse have been carried out. Worms were collected from 590 host specimens caught at 60 different localities of Hungary. 5 species of tapeworms (488 individuals) and 6 species of nematodes (4870 individuals) were found as follows: Cestoda - Catenotacnia pusilla, Hymcnolepis fratema, H. straminea, Taenia taeniaeformis metacestoda, Mathevotaenia symmetrica ssp. occidentalis. Nematoda - Trichocephalus muris, Heligmosomoides polygyrus polygyrus, Aspiculuris tetraptera, Syphacia obvelata, S. stroma, Mastophorus muris. Three nematoda species: Trichocephalus muris, Syphacia stroma, Mastophorus muris are reported for the first time from Mus musculus in Hungary. The general prevalence of helminth infection was 50%, of which the dominant species was A tetraptera. Key words: Helminths, Cestoda, Nematoda, international review, taxonomy, faunistics, Mus musculus, Rodentia, Hungary Introduction Investigations during the past few years clarified that two species of the Mus genus occur in Hungary; Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758 and Mus spicilegus Petényi, 1882 (Britton-Davidian et al. 1978, Bonhomme et al. 1984, Auffrai et al. 1990). At that time when the examined samples were taken the only term used was Mus musculus spicilegus therefore the exact identification of host animals was not possible. The difference between the two rodent species in terms of their infectionability by helminths could be a subject of further studies. Several parasitic helminths of Mus musculus are cosmopolitans like their hosts, but there exist some with limited distribution. There were several studies done on the parasitic helminths of house mice (see Table 1). Hungarian literature consists mainly of the studies written by authors working in the Parasitological Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Kassai & Mészáros (1968) worked on parasitic helminths of animal houses in Budapest, Mészáros et al. (1981) reported on helminths of Hortobágy National Park, Murai et al. (1985) of Kiskunság National Park. Mathevotaenia symmetrica was first found by Murai (1974) in Hungary. The found specimens were described as a new subspecies called M.s. occidentalis. European and Middle Asian parasites of house mice are summarized in Table 1.