The breeding of alligators is a way to prevent illegal and indiscriminate hunting
of these species and represents a profitable business because the consumption of
meat and leather in the international market. One of the species widely adopted for
captive holding is Caiman crocodilus crocodilus, alligator of the Amazon. The
parasitosis can be an obstacle to the good development from the activity, effecting
the infected animal’s survival and the performance, causing meddling between body
weight and performance and it is known that crocodilians are infected by species of
nematodes, trematodes, pentastomids and Acanthocephala, so few studies are
developed with alligators in Brazil. Thus, given the lack of papers about
helminthological identification in crocodilians in Brazil and the importance of this
datas, for both the record and for creating control measures on breeding farms, the
aim of this review was to know these reptiles and specially the Caiman crocodilus
yacare and the helminth fauna of crocodiles, and its importance within the species
breeding and to know the helminths fauna and the infections indicators of the
crocodile Caiman crocodilus crocodilus from brazilian Amazon. Six animals were
captured at the Tocantins-Araguaia basin, euthanized and necropsied on the field,
with the opening and cleaning of each anatomical segment of the digestive tract. The
contents obtained from washes were fixed in Railliet & Henry solution, to
identification of helminths species and determination of the infections indicators. In
total 652 helminths were gathered, from the six crocodiles necropsied, five of them
nematodes species; Brevimulticaecum baylisi, Brevimulticaecum pintoi,
Brevimulticaecum stekhoveni, Dujardinascaris longispicula, Dujardinascaris paulista,
Contracaecum sp., one trematoda Proterodiplostomum globulare and one
Acanthocephala, with larger percentage of infection for B. baylisi (83,3%) and larger
abundance and mean intensity P. globulare with 91,6 and 274,5 respectively.
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