Life Cycles of Lung Helminths in Terrestrial Mammals from Eastern Europe and Their Biological Classification

This article has been prepared based on the results of many years of the authors' original studies and analysis of the world literature. To determine the biological diversity of lung helminths various vertebrate hosts were studied, including 7 species from Armenia, 13 from Russia, 7 from Bulgaria and 10 from Poland, as well as many invertebrate potential hosts, mainly land mollusks. Three types of development cycles were found to be characteristic for lung helminthes: (1) Nematodes from family Dictyocaulidae developing in a direct way without using intermediate hosts, geohelminths or monoxenous type of development. (2) Those nematodes life cycles of which include intermediate hosts which are mainly land mollusks. These are species from family Protostrongylidae-biohelminths, dixenous type. (3) Life cycles also include intermediate hosts, but here they are vertebrate. This type includes cestodes Echinococcusgranulosus and Alveococcusmultilocularis (see our previous article on existing problems in their taxonomy)-biohelminths, dixenous type.