Nyctereutes procyonoides (Gray, 1834)

Holland, Celia V., 2023, A walk on the wild side: A review of the epidemiology of Toxocara canis and Toxocara cati in wild hosts, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 22, pp. 216-228 : 221

2.4. Raccoon dog ( Nyctereutes procyonoides )

The raccoon dog ( Nyctereutes procyonoides ), is an invasive species in Europe and is well established in Northern, Eastern and Central Europe ( Laurimaa et al., 2016). This Estonian study identified 17 helminth species among a sample of 255 raccoon dogs and concluded that given the increase in both the numbers and range of such hosts in Europe, this host species represents a potentially significant source of environmental contamination with zoonotic parasites. However, Otranto and Deplazes (2019) highlighted that raccoon dogs tend to concentrate their faeces in confined areas (latrines) (Yamamoto and Hidaka, 1984) which may restrict more widespread environmental contamination with Toxocara eggs. Three comparative studies from Lithuania, Denmark and Germany have revealed that the prevalence of T. canis is lower in raccoon dogs compared to foxes [in foxes 60.90% versus 13.10% (Al-Sabi et al., 2013), 40.50% versus 17.6% (Bruzinskaite-Schmidhalter et al., 2012) and 43.80% versus 33.0% (Waindock et al., 2021)]. However, it should be noted that in the most recent study by Waindok et al. the two prevalence values were reported to be much more similar. The relative abundances in Danish foxes were 2.6 (range 1–28) versus 0.2 (range 1–8) in raccoon dogs (Al-Sabi et al., 2013).

An analysis of a large data set of mammalian host-parasite associations found that the wildlife species with the highest number of zoonotic helminth parasites were the red fox, ( Vulpes vulpes ), the European wolf ( Canis lupus) and the raccoon dog ( Nyctereutes procyonoides ) (Wells et al., 2018).