Fish parasitofauna of Tavush reservoirs

Background.The flora and fauna of the river basins of the Republic of Armenia is quite rich and very diverse. Of particular interest is the life of the fish living in them and parasitic diseases, which have received little study. Purpose.The purpose of the research is to study the parasite fauna of fishes of Tavush and Varagajur rivers, Tavush and Hakhumi reservoirs. Material and methods.The research was carried out in 2022-2023. In the laboratory of "Veterinary Medicine and Veterinary Sanitary Expertise Research Center" of theArmenianNationalAgrarian University. Fish caught from Tavush and Varagajur rivers, Tavush and Hakhum reservoirs were the materialsfor research. 231 individuals were dissected by the method of complete parasitological dissection (by the method of Bykhovskaya-Pavlovskaya, 1985).The statistical processing of the data was carried out with the "BioStat 2009" computer program. Results.During the parasitological research conducted in the water basins of the Tavush region, 4 types of helminths were found in the fish species examined: broun trout, kurabarbel, caucasian scraper, wild common carp, sout caspian sprilin, prussian carpand caucasianchub europiean chub Dactylogyrus vastatormonogenetic ectoparasite, Diplostomum spathaceumand Diplostomum rutilitrematode metacercariae, Rhabdochona fortunatowi nematodes and 3 types of protozoa Chilodonella cyprini, Ichthyophthirius multifiliis andTrichodina nigra. Conclusion.As a result of the research of the parasitofauna, it was revealed that out of the 7 studied fish species, thebroun troutis the most susceptible to parasitic diseases, and the most common of the diseases is rhabdochonosis, which was foundin all the studied fish species.