Occurrence of Trematodes of the Family Heterophyidae in Sooty Gulls Intestine in Thuwal, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Three species of the trematodes, family Heterophyidae,Heterophyes heterophyes, Heterophyopsis continua, and Stictodoralari are recorded as a first report from the intestine of fifteen SootyGulls (Larus hemprichii); from the seashore of Thuwal, Jeddah,Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Diagnostic characters and measurementswere used to identify these three species. Infection with H. hetero-phyes was found to be the most prevalent (53.33%), whereas, infectionwith Heterophyopsis continua and with Stictodora lari wereless prevalent (26.67% individually). The two former species were accumulatedfrom the same intestine of one bird. Although the infectionwith S. lari is rarely distributed in Middle East, the finding of themean number of warms was higher (34.75) than H. heterophyes(17.88) and H. continua (14.75).