A study on Cestode Parasites of Corvus Species of Kashmir, India

During the present study, three species of birds belonging to the genus Corvus namely Corvus monedula, C. splendens and C. macrorhynchos were collected from different localities of Kashmir valley and investigated for the presence of cestode parasites. Anomotaenia galbulae (Gmelin, 1790) Furhrmann, 1932 was recovered from all the three host species. While, Choanotaenia micracantha was recovered only from C. monedula and no specimen of this cestode was obtained from C. Splendens and C. macrorhynchos during the present study. The specimens thus collected were identified as Anomotaenia galbulae and Choanotaenia micracantha on the basis of various morphological and morphometric characters when compared to the known species of genera Anamotaenia and Choanotaenia respectively. However, some intraspecific variations were observed.