George ChandyABHIJITH T.V.2020-07-232020-07-232017http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810149676The prevalence of endoparasites in Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) was studied in South Wayanad Forest Division from March to August, 2017. Fresh elephant dung samples (n=55) were screened for identification and quantification of endoparasites by centrifugal sedimentation–floatation method. The prevalence of parasite was 74.5 per cent and mean total parasite load ranged between 128.6/epg and 1757.1/epg across different samples. Endoparasites classed as nematode and cestodes were identified. Strongyles, strongyloides sp., anoplocephala sp., and ancylostoma sp., were the major parasites recorded from the samples. Strongyloids sp. And strongyle type egg were recorded to be the most prevalent parasites with 58.1 per cent samples testing positive. Mixed parasitic species infections in South Wayanad may be associated with the free movement of elephants between landscapes. The frequency distribution of parasitic load in individual elephants, samples from outer surface and inner region of dung showed skewed distribution of propagules. Centrifugal sedimentation and floatation method of fecal examiantion of outer surface and inner region of dung did not show significant difference in number of propagules. The highest number of parasitic propagules were recorded with floatation method when compared with sedimentation method. Flotation method appeared to enhance the detectability of propagules. The number of propagules varied among different herd dung samples collected from different localities. There were no relation between the parasitic load and age of elephants. The mean density of parasite eggs was higher in the individual animals (214.3  155.4 epg) than herd elephants (147.78  111.1 epg). Though parasitic load was higher in males based on occurrence of parasites using logistic regression it was found that females are 1.83 times higher occurrence for parasitic infection than males. The other variables such as place of collection, age-sex classes were not statistically significant. The parasite egg size classes were used to classify the parasitic egg into different taxonomic groups using discriminate function analysis (DFA). Three distinct size clusters were identified. Nematode and cestode eggs were classified correctly with 95.7%. Whereas, the egg size was similar within nematode group and separation into genus was difficult. Further, inclusion of stages of development of egg and larval stages could enable the better separation.ennullThesis