Biodiversity and Prevalence of Parasites of Rook (Corvus frugilegus) in Iran

Abstract

Background: Rooks are distributed all over Iran and no information is available in the literature on their parasitic infec­tions.

Methods: One hundred twenty five rooks were examined at post-mortem for parasitic infections.

Results: Two species of cestodes, 5 species of nematodes and 4 species of protozoa were found of which all were new host and distribution record.

Conclusion: Rooks have several parasites of which some are common with other domestic birds and some have zoonotic importance.