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Studies that seek to understand which factors influence the patterns of infection in the lizard Coleodactylus meridionalis are non-existent. In this way, we recorded the infection rates for these lizards from three different sized fragments of the Atlantic rainforest and investigated if there is influence of the size, mass and sex of the host regarding the endoparasite abundance. In addition, we investigated if there were possible associations between the host’s diet and parasitism, by calculating the diet niche breadth (based on the prey number of pooled stomachs) for each host population and comparing the diet between fragments and sexes (from the three sampled fragments). We collected 38 lizards across the three sampled forest fragments. We only found parasites in the lizards sampled from the smallest of the three forest fragments which included: Physaloptera lutzi, Haplometroides odhneri and Oligacanthorhynchus sp. For this population, lizards with greater length and body mass have a greater endoparasite abundance. In addition, based on the results obtained in our study, the diet of the lizards varies in food composition between sampled populations. Finally, knowing that among the infected lizards there is no sexual dimorphism in relation to size and body mass and that the stomach sampling for this population is insufficient to calculate the indexes related to the food niche; we used the number of prey lizards from all populations, thus we were able to associate the fact that female lizards have a greater endoparasite abundance due to variations in food composition between sexes.

In the current study, the structural characteristics of the egg and larva of the pentastomid Raillietiella mottae (Almeida, Freire, & Lopes 2008), are described and compared with those of other pentastomids. The eggs and larvae were obtained from lizards Phyllopezus periosus (Rodrigues 1986) and Phyllopezus pollicaris (Spix 1825) which were collected in the environmental protection area of Cachoeira de Missão Velha, Ceará state, northeastern Brazil (7° 13’ S; 39° 08’ W). Following collection, the specimens were transported to the Laboratorio de Zoologia (LZ-URCA) and deposited in terrariums to obtain the feces, which were collected and analyzed for the presence of pentastomid eggs. The eggs found were typical of the genus Raillietiella, differing from those of other genera due to the lack of an outer fl exible membrane. The larva had two pairs of limbs, each with a pair of terminal hooks. The limbs were unsegmented, ventrally curved, and supported by conical muscle structures with visible segmentation. The tail was bifurcate, and each section had a terminal bristle. Information on egg and larval morphology can be useful in the identification of genera and species. The current study provides a description of the eggs and embryos of a Pentastomida species from the Neotropical Region.