Japanese rock ptarmigans (Lagopus muta japonica) graze alpine plants as a major food resource. These alpine plants harbor defensive chemicals, often toxic, to avoid animal herbivory. Wild Japanese rock ptarmigans decompose these chemicals to avoid any ill effect from such plants, and detoxification presumably depends on gut-associated bacteria. In this report, we demonstrated the efficient degradation of a phenolic glycoside, rhododendrin, and its aglycone, rhododendrol, by cecal feces of wild Japanese rock ptarmigans, as compared with those from captive-bred Svalbard rock ptarmigans (L. m. hyperborea), which have shown the much less efficient degradation of rhododendrol. The present results indicate the importance of gut-associated bacteria for the survival of wild Japanese rock ptarmigans.

　A parasitological survey of the Amur hedgehogs (Erinaceus amurensis) which was established as an alien species in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, was performed. We detected two tick species, Haemaphysalis flava and Amblyomma testudinarium, a mite Caparinia erinacei, and three nematode groups, Capillariidae gen. spp., Monovaria sp. and an encysted larva Porrocaecum sp. This is the first record of the parasites from the hedgehogs in Japan.

　A parasitic nematode species, Srivastavanema musasabi (Nematoda, Heligmosomoidea), was obtained from a Japanese flying squirrel (Pteromys momonga) in Toyama Prefecture, central Japan and from a Siberian flying squirrel (P. volans) in Hokkaido Prefecture, northern Japan. The nematodes were described morphologically. This is the first report of S. musasabi in these two species of lesser flying squirrels and the first report on this nematode species in Toyama and Hokkaido Prefectures.