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Fourteen Uncinaria stenocephala Hookworms Were Found in One Golden Jackal From Mordovia

Golden jackal standing in natural habitat
Research · Disease, parasites & microbiology

The first published helminth data from a golden jackal (Canis aureus) in Russia’s Middle Volga region came from a single animal found dead on a road in the Republic of Mordovia in 2024. Researchers recovered 14 nematodes from the jackal, all identified as the hookworm Uncinaria stenocephala.

The study is therefore a regional first record rather than a survey of parasite prevalence in the local jackal population. Only one host was examined, and the paper’s main contribution is to document the parasite and describe the recovered worms in detail.

Fourteen worms, all one species

The authors report 14 specimens of U. stenocephala from the examined golden jackal. Both male and female worms were present. The paper provides morphological and morphometric descriptions together with photographs of the parasites, allowing the Mordovian material to be compared with existing descriptions of the species.

U. stenocephala is a nematode in the hookworm family Ancylostomatidae. In this study, however, the important result is not a new parasite species or a population estimate: it is the first published helminth record from a golden jackal in the Middle Volga region and the identification of all recovered worms as U. stenocephala.

A narrowly defined first regional record

The primary article does not establish how common the infection is among golden jackals in Mordovia or elsewhere in the Middle Volga region. With a single host animal, the finding cannot be converted into a prevalence estimate or used to describe the regional parasite community of golden jackals.

The result is therefore deliberately narrow: one golden jackal found dead on a road in Mordovia yielded 14 U. stenocephala, and the study supplies the first published helminth data for the species from this part of European Russia.

Sources and image credit

  1. Kirillova, N. Yu., Kirillov, A. A., & Andreychev, A. V. (2026). First Finding of Uncinaria stenocephala (Railliet, 1884) (Chromadorea, Ancylostomatidae) in the Golden Jackal Canis aureus (Carnivora, Canidae) from the Republic of Mordovia. Parasitology, 60(3), 276–287.Primary article. The openly available abstract reports one golden jackal found dead on a road in Mordovia in 2024, 14 Uncinaria stenocephala, and morphological and morphometric descriptions with photographs of male and female worms. The Russian full text requires subscription.
  2. RUSMED bibliographic record for the articleBibliographic record confirming the article date, journal volume and issue.

Image: Vengolis — female golden jackal photographed in India, 30 January 2022; Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0. Representative species image, not the jackal examined in Mordovia. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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