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Two Fecal Tests Had Only 11.1–56.5% Sensitivity for Golden Jackal Helminths

Golden jackal standing beside a tree
Research · Disease, parasites & microbiology

Two commonly used fecal tests detected several important intestinal parasites in golden jackals (Canis aureus) but missed many infections that were found by direct examination of the intestine, according to an Italian study published online on 3 June 2026. The researchers tested whether non-invasive fecal sampling can provide reliable parasite surveillance as the species continues to expand in Europe. This matters because golden jackals can share intestinal helminths — parasitic worms — with other wild and domestic canids, and several of these parasites are relevant to animal or human health.

Intestinal contents and corresponding fecal samples from 84 golden jackals were examined. The carcasses had been collected through wildlife health surveillance in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northeastern Italy, between 2009 and January 2025, after road mortality.

Fecal tests had low to moderate sensitivity

The researchers compared two copromicroscopic methods, meaning microscopic techniques used to detect parasite eggs in feces: a flotation technique and Mini-FLOTAC. They were evaluated against a scraping, filtration and counting technique used to recover adult intestinal helminths directly from carcasses. The fecal methods detected eggs from Toxocara canis, Trichuris vulpis, strongylids, Mesocestoides species and Taenia species.

For the roundworm groups, the tests detected 28.6% to 56.5% of infections identified by intestinal examination. For the two tapeworm groups, sensitivity was lower, at 11.1–29.4%. Specificity ranged from 85.7% to 100%, so false positives were relatively uncommon, but a negative fecal sample could not rule out infection. Estimates for rarer parasites were uncertain because few animals were infected. Several less common worm taxa found by direct intestinal examination were not detected at all in the fecal samples, while trematode eggs were not targeted by the fecal tests.

Flotation was applied to 79 samples and Mini-FLOTAC to 50, with 45 examined by both. The two fecal methods performed similarly overall. Agreement between them was high, ranging from 87% for strongylids to 100% for T. canis and Mesocestoides species.

Egg counts did not reliably reflect adult parasite burden

Higher adult parasite burdens generally did not make fecal detection more likely. Strongylids tested with flotation were an exception. Quantitative Mini-FLOTAC egg counts also did not show a consistent linear relationship with the number of adult parasites.

The authors therefore caution against treating fecal egg counts as a direct measure of parasite burden in individual jackals. At population level, however, they conclude that fecal sampling can still be useful for epidemiological surveillance if studies use adequate sample sizes and correct prevalence estimates for the known sensitivity and specificity of the tests.

Sources and image credit

  1. Ferraro, E., Beraldo, P., Marchiori, E., Simonato, G., Vianello, F., Iraci, S., Giammarino, M., Massolo, A., & Cassini, R. (2026). Comparing performance of copro-diagnostics for monitoring intestinal parasitic infections in the golden jackal (Canis aureus). International Journal for Parasitology, Article 104899.

Image: Sameeramed / Wikimedia Commons; Kumana National Park, Sri Lanka, 14 August 2013; representative photograph, cropped to 16:9 · CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Source

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