Biological Rodent

Control

This topic is also connected to snakes, although not obviously. I have been working for a large part of my professional career on a project termed ‘Biological Rodent Control’. It centered around a protozoan parasite, Sarcocystis singaporensis, that occurs naturally in the reticulated python and rats in Southeast Asia. Nowadays, the parasite is being used in rat bait to control rodent pests. I will not go into the scientific details here, you can look this up under Contact & Links. The life cycle of Sarcocystis singaporensis is shown below. The main work started in 1993, when I met an enthusiastic team of researchers (led by Sermsakdi Hongnark) of the Agricultural Zoology Research Group of the Department of Agriculture (DOA) in Bangkok, who were as dedicated to rodent control and research into pythons and rodents like me. We set up a small breeding colony of reticulated pythons to produce the parasite. This was initially supported by Dr. Youngprapakorn of Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm & Zoo; later the team established its own snake husbandry at DOA. After that, I expanded my collaborations with other colleagues in Southeast Asia, namely in Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines. Until today, the Institute of Parasitology of Hohenheim University in Stuttgart, Germany, kindly provides me with laboratory capacity to continue my research on these fascinating parasites. See an example of the application of biological rodent control: Rodent Management in Northern Laos