Nematodes:Vertebrate parasites

Introduction: Vertebrate parasitic nematodes infect all animal species and are highly diverse group of organisms.The Nematode orders, Strongylida, Rhabditida, Ascaridida, Oxyurida, Spirurida and Enoplida are known to infect vertebrate hosts.All the vertebrate organisms starting from Fishes to Mammals have been known to be parasitized by the nematodes.Thapar (1925) was the first Indian to report a new genus Echinopharynx and published a monograph on the oxyuroids of reptiles.Some of the significant workers include Johnson (1969Johnson ( -1973)), Chaturvedi and Kansal (1977), Arya (1978-1991) Gupta and Trivedi (1982-1989), Rathore and Nama (1984-1990), Dey Sarkar (1998-2000), Rizvi and co-workers (2011-2022) & Maity and co-workers (2018-2021).Global diversity: There are about 5,000 species of nematodes are likely to be parasites of vertebrate animals and humans (Nemaplex accessed 21.05.2022)Diversity in India: 698 species belonging to 8 orders, 59 families and 220 genera are compiled as per the published data available from India.