New data on wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) a dead-end host for large American liver fluke (Fascioloides magna)

Abstract

Summary Fascioloidosis is a parasitic disease of primary wild and domestic ruminants, caused by a digenean trematode, Fascioloides magna. The final hosts of F. magna are divided according to the host-parasite interactions into definitive, dead end and aberrant. The clinical appearance, pathology, outcome of disease, and its importance in disease epidemiology vary with different host types. According to this division, wild boar (Sus scrofa) are characterized as a dead end host. In this paper we analysed 12 wild boar livers from Croatia. Eleven of them contained pigment traces, pseudocysts, degrading pseudocysts, fluke migratory channels, live and degrading flukes. F. magna eggs were found in pseudocysts, but no eggs were recovered from faeces. Concurrent infection with F. magna and Fasciola hepatica was detected in one liver. According to everything we observed, wild boar currently has no direct role in maintaining and spreading the disease.