{"id":305,"date":"2025-02-11T14:04:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T14:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/?p=305"},"modified":"2025-02-12T13:42:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T13:42:34","slug":"parasites-of-two-co-occurring-house-gecko-species-hemidactylus-frenatus-and-gehyra-mutilata-from-central-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/?p=305","title":{"rendered":"Parasites of two co-occurring house gecko species, Hemidactylus frenatus and Gehyra mutilata from Central Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Authors<\/h4>\n<div>\n<div>PD Mahagedara, RS Rajakaruna<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Abstract<\/h4>\n<div>\n<p>Two house gecko species, the Asian house gecko,\u00a0<em>Hemidactylus frenatus\u00a0<\/em>(Schlegel, 1836) and the four-clawed gecko,\u00a0<em>Gehyra mutilate\u00a0<\/em>(Wiegmann, 1834) inhabiting urban areas in Kandy and Kegalle districts were examined to determine the types of ecto and endo parasites, their prevalence and intensity of infections. A total of 45 geckos from the two species were dissected after anesthetizing of which 21 individuals (47%) were infected with one or more parasites. Both host species were infected by helminthes such as the nematodes and a fluke species. In addition mites (<em>Geckobia sp<\/em>.) and an acanthocephalan (<em>Acanthocephalus serendibensis<\/em>), and ciliates were found only in\u00a0<em>H. frenatus<\/em>. Although the two gecko species co-occur, some parasites show host specificity. Nematode infections (possibly Oxyuris infection) were the most common type with 29% prevalence. Although A. serendibensis has been previously described from an agamid,\u00a0<em>Ceratophora stoddarti<\/em>, and two geckonids\u00a0<em>Cnemaspis kandiana\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>Cnemaspis tropidogaster\u00a0<\/em>from Sri Lanka,\u00a0<em>H<\/em>.\u00a0<em>frenatus\u00a0<\/em>presents a new host record for\u00a0<em>A<\/em>.\u00a0<em>serendibensis\u00a0<\/em>and occurred at high intensity of 5-10 worms per host. There were no parasites in the blood or body cavity of the geckos examined. More female geckos were infected with parasites than males (\u03c72=5.20, p&lt;0.05). Although H.\u00a0<em>frenatus\u00a0<\/em>harboured parasites of all five groups while\u00a0<em>G. mutilate\u00a0<\/em>had only two groups, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of infections between the two species (\u03c72=1.16, p&gt;0.05). None of the identified parasite species have a zoonotic potential.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Download<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/11-1-5.pdf\">Article [PDF]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authors PD Mahagedara, RS Rajakaruna Abstract Two house gecko species, the Asian house gecko,\u00a0Hemidactylus frenatus\u00a0(Schlegel, 1836) and the four-clawed gecko,\u00a0Gehyra mutilate\u00a0(Wiegmann, 1834) inhabiting urban areas in Kandy and Kegalle districts were examined to determine the types of ecto and endo parasites, their prevalence and intensity of infections. A total of 45 geckos from the two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[102,101,99,100,98,94],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-11-1","tag-gehyra-mutilate","tag-hemidactylusfrenatus","tag-house-geckos","tag-parasites","tag-pd-mahagedara","tag-rs-rajakaruna"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":386,"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vingnanam.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}