In Iraq, there are several  species  of  reptiles  so,  Khalaf (1959) wrote a book about them, in his book among the reptiles reported is Agama nupta De Filippi while its subspecies is Agama nupta fusca, while  Mahdi and George  (1969), gave the subspecies as A. nupta nupta. Anderson (1999), while describing Iranian reptiles gave some scattered information about Iraqi reptiles especially those found in close territory, he reported that A. nupta are found in the foothills of the Zagros mountains in eastern Iraq, but he changed the genus name to be Laudakia nupta nupta, with the L. nupta nupta called large-scaled rock Agama, while A. nupta fusca is yellow -headed Agama. Therefore, our species is Laudakia (Agama) nupta nupta as it is not yellow-headed.

 

Reptiles all over the world were investigated for their parasitic fauna.  In India, Johnson (1966) described a new oxyurid nematode of genus Thelandros from Calotes versicolor (Daud, 1889) with a key to the Indian species of the genus Calotes. In the following year, Johnson (1967) reported the occurrence of Thelandros alatus (Wedl, 1862) in India. In Africa, Goldberg and Bursey (2001) studied the intestinal parasites of four species of skinks (Mabuya) from Southern Africa, were they reported five species of nematodes including Abbreviata paradoxa, and  gave a comprehensive review of previous reports of helminthes from Mabuya spp.

 

In Nigeria, Omonon et al. (2011) carried out a parasitological study on Agama lizards (Agama agama) were they revealed two species of nematodes: Strongyluris brevicaudata and Thelandros annulatus estimating their percentage of infection. Recently, Halajian et al. (2013) studied the helminth parasites of the European glass lizard, Pseudopus apodus, European grass snake and Natrix natrix from Iran. One species of Nematode, Entomelas entomelas was revealed in P. apodus. Several research were performed in Iraq concerning nematodes of Iraqi vertebrates such as fishes (Rahemo, 1978; Ali et al., 1987; Moravec and Rahemo,1993;  Moravec et al., 2009; Al-Jadoaa, 2002), amphibians (Al-Barwari and Nassir, 1983), birds (Al-Khateeb et al., 1982; Al-Alousi and Daoud, 1993; Al-Darajii et al.,1998) and mammals (Mahmoud, 1974; Shamsuddin and Mohammad, 1978) but very little on reptiles.

 

Al-Barwari and Nassir (1983) had recovered Thelandros sp. from two lizards, Hemidactylus flaviviridis and H. persicus. Later on, Hassan and Abdulla (1989) described Thelandros sp. and Thelandros micilosae from the rough-scaled gecko, Cyrtodactylus scaber. Al-Zako (1999), made a comprehensive survey on nematodes of amphibians, reptilians and birds, she described four species of nematodes from reptiles namely, Neopharyngodon sp. from Gymnodactylus scaber, Thelandros vittatae sp. from Mabuya vittata, Trispulscaris sp. from Mabuya vittatae and Camllanus sp. from Testudo gracea. Recently, Al-Barwari and  Saeed (2007)  investigated  7 species of Iraqi reptiles for helminthes perarasites, and they found 7 species of nematodes namely: Thelandros sp., Microtetrameres sp., Angusticaecum holopterum, Tractis dactyluris, Tachygonetria nicolleri, Camallanus microcephalus and Falcaustra japonensis. More recently, Al-Moussawi (2010) reported for the first time adult nematode Tanqua anamala from wall of gastro-intestinal tract of the dice snake, Natrix tessellate tessellata. As reported earlier, there is no report anywhere about the parasites of Laudakia (Agama) nupta neither from Iraq nor from any region of the world, so this study will provide the first investigation about parasites of the lizard, L. nupta nupta, and first host record of the nematode, Abbreviata baltazardi. Furthermore, Iraq is considered as a new locality of Abbreviata baltazardi.

A collection trip was organized by Kurdistan natural history museum to Rawandos region by museum staff, and members of Biology Department on the 13 of October, 2013. By using a gun, two lizards were shot dead then dissected to obtain their viscera, both of them were fixed in 4% formalin, then brought to the laboratory of the museum to dissect the gastrointestinal tract. Only nematodes specimens were obtained, fixed in 4% formalin, examined under microscope after mounting in glycerin or water. The specimens then transferred to water adding 70% ethyl alcohol which was examined by the first author. Some specimens were sent to Dr Goldberg for examination. Photographs were taken using MDCE-5A digital camera.

After thorough examination of more than 16 specimens of nematodes, it appears clearly that these nematodes belong to:

 

Order:  Spiruridea

Family: Physalopteridae

Genus: Abbreviata

Species: Abbreviata  baltazardi

 

Remarks: Mouth with large simple triangular lateral lips armed with one tooth or more, two amphids were also observed in addition to external circle of papillae. Cuticle with clear transverse striations and may be reflected forwards over the lips to form cephalic collarette (Figures 1 to 4). Oesophagus divided into two portions, glandular and muscular (Figure 2). Excretory pore open at the anterior part of the body (Figure 5) posterior to the nerve ring (Figure 5 and 6). Male: 25 to 28 mm in length with well developed caudal alae (Figure 6) meeting ventrally in front of cloaca, and usually supported by at least four pairs of long, protruded papillae (Figure 8), and a number of sessile papillae of which there are generally pre anal and five post-anal spicules dissimilar (Figure 9 and 10). Female: 29 to 34 mm in length, vulva in the anterior half of the body; two uteri are present, uterus with 2 branches (Figure 11);    Oviparous; eggs elongated, smooth, thick-shelled, not capsulated (Figure 12 ), embryonated, measures in utero 0.065 to 0.077 in length and 0.043 to 0.051 mm in width.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depending on the characters observed in these specimens, it can easily be placed under the family physalopteridae, with basic similarities to the species, Physaloptera clausa (Gorgani et al., 2013), different from P. phryosoma collected from the horned lizards from South-Western United States as the male spicules are not similar and eggs are capsulated, and the species measurement is quite smaller than the present specimens (Olsen, 1974). It is important to note that two species of Abbreviata have been reported from mammals, namely Abbreviata caucasica recovered from numerous mammals    including    Gorilla   gorilla   from oesophagus, Pongo pygmaeus from stomach, Cercopithecus mitis from small intestines, Macaca mulatta, Papio sp  and man.  Other species, Abbreviata poicilometra has been recovered from C. mitis from stomach, and from Cercocebus torquata (Gorgani et al., 2013). Our specimens are clearly different from these two mammalian species in many characters. Halajian et al. (2013), reported that Abbreviata baltazardi, Spauligodon lacerate, Skrjabinodon pigmentatus and Phryocephalus heliosopus were recovered from the sunwatcher toad head agama.

Therefore, this study represents the first in Iraq. In addition, the lizard L. nupta nupta is considered a new host for the specie A. baltazardi.

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

The authors are very grateful to Prof. Dr Goldberg, Whittier College, California, USA for classifying our specimens after sending him both male and female adult lizards.