Varestrongylus		Contents		Rev 07/23/2026
Lungworms		Classification		Biology and Ecology
		Morphology and Anatomy		Life Cycle
Return to Varestrongylus Menu				Ecosystem Functions and Services
		Distribution		Management
Return to Protostrongylidae Menu		Feeding		References
		Go to Nemaplex Main Menu		Go to Dictionary of Terminology

Classification:

Chromadorea

  Rhabditia

    Rhabditida

      Strongyloidea

        Protostrongylidae

        Varestrongylinae

Type species of the genus: Varestrongylus pneumonicus  Bhalerao, 1932

Synonyms:

Strongylus Muller, 1780

Protostongylus Kemenskii, 1905

Synthetocaulus Railiet & Henry, 1907

Bicaulus Shults & Boev, 1940

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Morphology and Anatomy:

• Morphologically diagnosed mainly by copulatory structures i nmales, including attributes of the copulatory bursa, length of the spicules, formation
  of the spicule tips, and the configuration of the corpus and crura of the gubernaculum; p
• Putative diagnostic attributes among females have usually been limited to the presence or absence and form of the provagina.
•  A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis for the genus Varestrongylus and its specieshas been  inferred based on 25  morphological characters  across 10 species of the genus (Verocai et al., 2018).

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Distribution:

Eurasia and North America. Type species of the genus (Varestrongylus pneumonicus) reported from Bharal - wild blue sheep - (Pseudos nayaur), Hodgson argali (Ovis ammon hodgsoni), Siberian ibex (Capra sibirica filippii), and Tibetan goat (Capra sibirica). The genus is one of the mosts speciose groups of the Protostrongylidae (Verocai et al., 2018).

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Feeding:

Food Sources and Feeding strategies for the genus Varestrongylus

 Species of Varestrongylus are lungworms parasitic in the small and large bronchioles of wild and domestic ungulates within the families Bovidae (primarily Caprinae) and Cervidae across Eurasia and North America (Verocai et al., 2018)

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Biology and Ecology:

Infections of caribou  are reported with the lungworm, Varestrongylus eleguneniensis.(Loginova et al., 2023).

Rangifer is considered a secondary definitive host for V. eleguneniensis, with muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) a primary host (Verocai et al. 2014).  Loginova et al (2023) consider that there is a possibility that V. eleguneniensis (and O. macrotis) were translocated and introduced to the Taimyr area of Russia with muskoxen from Alaska and Canada. Apparently 30 muskoxen were introduced to Taimyr in the 1970s: ten of them from Banks Island (western Canada) and twenty came from Nunivak Island (western USA). By 2011 they had increased to 7200 animals (Argunov 2018).

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Life Cycle:

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Ecosystem Functions and Services:

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Management:

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References:

Argunov, A.V. 2018. Alien species of the mammalian fauna in Yakutui. Russian J. Biological Invasions 9:313-326.

Dougherty, E.C., Goble, F.C.  1946. The Genus Protostrongylus Kamenskii, 1905 (Nematoda: Metastrongylidae), and Its Relatives: Preliminary Note. J. Parasitol. 32:7-16.

Loginova, O.A., Kolpashchikov, L.A. Spiridonov, S.E. 2023. First report of Orthostrongylus sp. (Nematodea: Protostrongylidae) in wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) from Taimyr, Russia: Nearctic parasites in a Palearctic host. Helminthology 122:685-689.

Verocai G.G., Kutz, S.J., Simard, M., Hoberg, E.P. 2014. Varestrongylus eleguneniensis sp. n. (Nematoda: Protostrongylidae): a widespread, multi-host lungworm of wild north American ungulates, with an emended diagnosis for the genus and explorations of biogeography. Parasit Vectors 7:557

Verocai, G.G., Kutz, S.J., Hoberg, E.P.  2018. Varestrongylus (Nematoda: Protostrongylidae), lungworms of ungulates: a phylogenetic framework based on comparative morphology. Parasitology Research (2018) 117:2075-2083 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-018-5893-8

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Copyright © 1999 by Howard Ferris.
Revised: July 23, 2026.

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