Helminthological Collection

 

Helminthological collection of IBER-BAS has been established on the basis of the Collection of parasitic worms of the Central Laboratory of General Eecology of BAS. The collection was created in the 1950s with the collection of helminths of mammals, collected and studied by Prof. Yancho Yanchev and Prof. Todor Genov, who have been considered founders of the Bulgarian helminthology. In the next decades the Helminthological collection has been enriched with materials from birds (mainly cestodes and trematodes), collected by A. Paspaleva and G. Paspalev. During the last 50 years the Helminthological collection was completed with the specimens, collected and studied by the researchers of the division of "Biodiversity and ecology of parasites" of IBER-BAS.

The Helminthological collection of IBER-BAS incorporates a dry collection unit (microscopic slides), containing about 20,000 lots of the four main groups of helminths (Cestoda, Trematoda, zooparasitic Nematoda and Monogenea), counting over 30,000 specimens. The “wet” collection unit contains about 1,200 lots zooparasitic nematodes and 350 lots cestodes and trematodes in ethanol. Significantly small part of the collection are type materials (app. 30 species), mainly paratypes and syntypes.

The collection can be accessed by contacting and requesting the curator. Currently, app. 40% of the collection of cestodes and nematodes is included in the offline database, prepared on the platform FileMaker Pro. In the next years all helminthological collection will be included in a digital catalogue and will be available online.

Address of collection:
IBER-BAS
2 Yurii Gagarin Street
1113, Sofia