Parasitological fauna in farm animals from Cape Verde Islands and Guinea-Bissau (West Africa)

Apresentação em painel

Since the Atlantic Islands and the coast of West Africa have been discovered that scientists studied their parasitological fauna, mainly the one associated to serious diseases in man and farm animals, which were unknown in Europe. The Cape Verde Islands and Guinea-Bissau were used as “arrival and departure points” during the portuguese discoveries, which promoted the introduction of parasites from other geographical areas or the opposite. On the other hand, as they have been related during several centuries by historical, religious, geographical and political reasons, the spread out of parasitical agents to the previously uninhabitated islands was the most probable occurrence. Based on available references and on the results obtained from parasitological studies in domestic animals performed during 1991 and 1999, at the Cape Verde Islands and Guinea-Bissau, 65 parasitic species were listed, included in PLATYHELMINTHES (TREMATODA and CESTODA), NEMATODA, INSECTA, ARACHNIDA and PENTASTOMIDA PHYLLA. The parasitological diversity was higher at Guinea-Bissau, with 55 species, than at Cape Verde Islands, with 30, from which six species were not found at Guinea-Bissau. Considering the overall species identified, 22 (33,84%) are of afrotropical origin and all the remaining are cosmopolite (61,54%) and pantropical (4,62%), revealing the scarcity of afrotropical species in the islands, only 4 (6,15%). As the majority of species were of cosmopolitan origin, they could have been introduced by domestic animal migrations connected to species evolution or more recently by maritime traffic from all over the world. On the other hand, the obtained differences express the dissimilarity in bio and climatic conditions between a continental area with a regular rainy season and an insular area where the irregularity of the rainy season restricts the diversity of the parasitological fauna.