Faecal pellets of Varanus salvator collected in Pulau Tulai in the South China Sea revealed that individuals there mainly feed on crabs and tourists' leftovers. The stomach contents of monitor lizards living in an oil palm estate in Peninsular Malaysia show that the main diet in that habitat consisted of various types of insects and occasionally small rodents. Hatchlings were strictly insectivorous. Both groups of lizards exhibited area-concentrated foraging behaviour and their preferred hunting technique was "open pursuit"

Les iidicateurs de contamination fecale sont des micro-organismes dont la presence dans une eau ou un aliment est le signe d'ume contamination par des matieres fecales. En France, quatre flores bacteriennes sont habituellement recherchees au laboratoire: les coliformes, les coliformes thermotolerants, les Escherichia coli et les enterocoques. Leur denombrement, effectue selon des methodes normalisees simples et sensibles, se substitue a la recherche des micro-organismes pathogenes, souvent fastidieuse. Les connaissances acquises recemment dans le domaine de l'ecologie des coliformes et des enterocoques conduisent cependant a interpreter avec prudence les resultats d'analyses: l'origine fecale des indicateurs usuels n'est pas toujours certaine. Pour assurer plus efficacement la protection de la Sante Publique, il est imperatif de disposer d'indicateurs plus fiables. Les recherches actuelles s'orientent vers les bacteriophages a ARN F-specifiques et vers les bacteries du genre Bifidobacterium

To investigate the epidemiological trait of gastroenteritis of human caused by Campylobacter jejuni, isolation of etiological agent was carried out. Isolated C. jejuni were biotyped and serotyped. A total of 1929 specimens from 438 human, 182 milking cows, 200 cattle, 187 goats, 70 dogs, 426 pigs, 278 chickens, 148 duck, 50 raw milk, 110 chicken meat, 20 duck liver and 50 river water was examined for the presence of C. jejuni and C. coli by direct plating and enrichment techniques. Isolation rates detected in human, animals food and water were as follows : human 0.7 %, ducks 54.7 %, dogs 37.1 %, chickens 33.7 %, goats 26.7 %, cattle 25.5 %, pigs 19.9 % and milking cows 7.7 %. The organism was isolated from 65 % of 20 duck livers and from 20 % of 110 chicken meat. Campylobacter was not recovered from raw milk and river water. The majority of the isolated 201 strains of C. jejuni was classified as biotype I (53.7 %) and Biotype II (36.8 %). 117 strains of C. coli were 59.8 % of biotype I, 40.1 % biotype II. Isolated C. jejuni strains showed 13 different serotype, and serotype 4, 5, 26 and 36 were most frequent. C. coli strains showed 7 different serotype, and serotype 21, 25 and 29 were relatively common