Hedgehogs are small, nocturnal, spiny-coated animals that have been growing in popularity as exotic pets. These animals are host to a wide variety of viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites, some of which are of zoonotic character (e.g., Herpesvirus, Salmonella spp., Trychophyton mentagrophytes var. erinacei, Eucoleus aerophilus syn. Capillaria aerophila) (McCarthy and Moore, 2000; Riley and Chomel, 2005). Hedgehogs are common and widely distributed in Iran;
they are found both in the wild and, to a lesser extent, as pet animals. Parasites are also known to have significant effects on the population dynamics of their hosts in other systems (Irvine 2006), and increased levels of infection could contribute to population declines. Unfortunately, clinical and ecological studies on parasites of hedgehogs are held back by a lack of validated tests for infection in the living animal.
Crenosoma striatum belongs to the order
Strongylida, family
Crenosomatidae and genus Crenosoma (Skrjabin1952). The hedgehog lungworm
Crenosoma striatum ZEDER, 1800 is specific to the hedgehog and is the most important parasite of the lung (Barutzki et al., 1984; Beck, 2007).
C. striatum has a heteroxenous life cycle. The females lay eggs with a transparent, elastic integument, which consist the L1-stage (Beck, 2007). The egg integument gets lost very early, so one can find the 300 μm long L1-stages in the bronchial tubes. Larvae of lung worm
Crenosoma striatum, a major killer of hedgehogs, are also coughed up and swallowed (Epe et al., 1993). First stage larvae are coughed up and swallowed or pass up the trachea by ciliary movements. They pass through the gastro-intestinal tract and are shed in faeces (BECK, 2007). The L1 penetrate the feet of their intermediate hosts, predominantly land snails, and develop to the infectious L3-stage in three to four weeks (Schütze 1980; Epe et al 1993; Mehlhorn 2008). Baruš and Blažek (1971) could not find intermediate host preferences, while Lämmler and Saupe (1968) described the snails
Cepaea nemoralis,
C. hortensis and
Arianta arbustorum as being especially capable hosts for the lungworm. Hedgehogs become infected by ingesting infected snails. After a prepatent period of 21 days the worms become sexually mature and the first larvae can be found in the faeces (Epe et al 1993; Beck 2007).
Figure 1 shown the developmental cycle of C. striatum. So far, there have been reports of the hedgehogs infestation with this parasite from Italy (Poglayen et al., 2003), Britain, (Gaglio, 2010), and Turkey (Cirak et al., 2010). This is the first report of the
C. striatum infestation in the lung of hedgehogs in Iran
. In this survey, hedgehogs (Hemiechinus auritus, n=6) killed in Kerman area, were examined for this parasite. Three dead hedgehogs (Hemiechinus auritus) were investigated for evidence of lungworm infection.