Metazoan endoparasites of snakes from Argentina: Review and checklist with distributional notes and remarks

Abstract

This article presents a checklist of metazoan parasites of snakes from Argentina, along with a comprehensive review of the relevant literature published between 1922 and June 2023, covering various aspects of interest. We compiled 34 species of metazoan endoparasites from 28 studies. The subclass Digenea showed the highest number of species (n = 22 species), followed by the phylum Nematoda (n = 8 species), and the subclass Pentastomida (n = 3 species and 1 taxa inquirenda). Dipsadidae was the family of snakes with the most species examined for metazoan endoparasites (n = 20 species). In contrast, Viperidae had the largest number of specimens surveyed (n = 343). Of 23 provinces, 15 (65.2%) presented at least one report of metazoan endoparasites in snakes. The northeastern provinces showed the highest richness of metazoan endoparasites and host diversity. Many articles focused on taxonomy, but studies on parasite ecology were not found. Although taxonomic accuracy was high in most reports, some records were correctly deposited in zoological collections or geo-referenced. This is the first attempt to include all groups of metazoan endoparasites of snakes from Argentina in a single checklist in the last century.