Systematic review of the helminth community in opossums of the genus Didelphis (Family: Didelphidae)

Abstract

Opossums are animals of great importance for public health because of their versatility and adaptability to environments. Their dietary diversity ends up exposing these animals to many gastrointestinal parasites, including those of zoonotic concern. However, technical-scientific literature is limited and with few studies addressi the diversity of parasitic helminths found in opossums, especially when considering polyparasitism. Given the limited number of reports, it is crucial to update the existing findings, particularly regarding the location and species of Didelphis, to encourage further research. This paper is a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative literature focusing on the description of helminths reported in opossums of the genus Didelphis in the time frame from 1948 to September 2024. The active search was carried out by searching for articles in all languages in the SciELO, PubMed and VHL platforms, adopting the combination of descriptors in English registered in the BVS: Helminths and Didelphis with the Boolean operator AND. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria over almost 77 years, 111 articles were found by adding together the three databases within the stipulated period. With the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 68 works formed the present study. Based on the review, 4 species of opossums of the genus Didelphis are the species with the most published data. In this group, the diversity of parasites is great both among the classes and species properly identified. However, few studies have been carried out in Brazil, and those have been mainly on specimens from the North region. Because this is a region that has a large presence of species and a particular environment, further study is of interest, given the richness of families and species reported.