A Comparative Study of the Common Protozoan Parasites of Clarias gariepinus from the Wild and Cultured Environments in Benue State, Nigeria.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Parasitology Research Volume 2011, Article ID 916489, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2011/916489 Research Article A Comparative Study of the Common Protozoan Parasites of Clarias gariepinus from the Wild and Cultured Environments in Benue State, Nigeria S. Omeji,1 S. G. Solomon,1 and E. S. Idoga2 1 Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, University of Agriculture, PMB 2373 Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria 2 Department of Vetrinary Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria Correspondence should be addressed to E. S. Idoga, daenoks@ Received 18 May 2011; Revised 8 July 2011; Accepted 15 August 2011 Academic Editor: Bernard Marchand Copyright © 2011 S. Omeji et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A total of one hundred and twenty Clarias gariepinus comprising 30 dead and 30 live fishes were examined for protozoan parasites infestation, sixty each from the wild and a pond (cultured environment) over a period of six months. Ichthyophthirius multifiliis was the most common protozoan parasites found in C. gariepinus from the wild (River Benue) and cultured (pond) environments. These protozoan parasites constitute 37.08% of the total parasites encountered for fishes in the pond and 42.51% of fishes in the wild. Among the body parts of the sampled fishes from the pond, the gills had the highest parasite load (38.86%). Also, the gills had the highest parasite load (40.54%) among the body parts of the fishes sampled from the wild. Fishes not infested with any protozoan parasites from the pond constituted 36.70% of the total fish sampled. On the other hand, fishes not infested with any