Metazoan Marine Parasites of Costa Rica: A Review

Abstract

Many new marine parasite species are added every year. Still, in some places, mainly tropical regions, marine parasites have been little studied. An exhaustive review of the indexed publications where species of parasites are reported in the marine environments of Costa Rica was carried out. The history of research on marine parasites in this region is also reviewed. A total of 147 species of marine parasites have been reported in Costa Rica as parasites of 61 different species of hosts. Most of these parasites correspond to trematodes and cestodes, found mainly in the digestive tract of their vertebrate hosts. In Costa Rica, marine parasites have been studied mainly in sea turtles, elasmobranchs, fish, and dolphins. Most marine parasites have been reported based on morphological identifications of adult stages, and most of the work done so far consists of taxonomic identifications (species reports), with little contribution to the pathology and other aspects of the parasites–hosts interactions. The technical difficulties for research in marine parasitology, the lack of sampling in certain groups of hosts, and the lack of a consolidated research group in marine wildlife parasitology in Costa Rica are factors that have prevented a greater and faster advance in the knowledge of the biodiversity of marine parasites in this country.