Rodents are serious pests causing severe damages and economic losses during production,transport and storage of food.Tropical and sub-tropical agriculture is conducive to the rodent population and damages caused by them to crops.In India,the average annual loss to food grain production by rodents is estimated to be 6%,representing a loss of about 10-12 million tones of food grains annually,hence a serious threat to the food security of the country.As a result of their habits,habitat and behaviour,rodents are predisposed to infections by ecto-and endo-parasites and are responsible for transmission of a large number of diseases to livestock,humans and wild animals.The frequency of disease transmission is facilitated by the close association and physiologic similarities that rodents have with man and other animals plus the exposure to blood sucking arthropods,beetles,cockroaches and other invertebrates,enlarges the scope for transmission.Importance of parasitic infections of rodents continues due to their prevalence,vitality and global distribution.Parasitic infections which rodents harbour and convey to human or animal populations have not been as thoroughly investigated as microbial infections.Parasitic prevalence studies have been conducted on different species of rodents such as Rattus rattus,Tatera indica and Bandicota bengalensis trapped from different locations of Punjab state of India from time to time.Commensal rodents have been found to be more infected with parasites as compared to field rats.Examination of different organs and faecal matter of wild rodent species have revealed higher prevalence of endoparasites such as Cysticercus fasciolaris,Hymenolepis diminuta,H.nana,Moniliformis moniliformis and Capillaria hepatica.Our finding of live motile larvae of C.fasciolaris inside the hepatic capsules of different species of rodents indicated that infected rats are a potential source of infection for cats and other carnivores.Rodents are the definitive hosts of H.diminuta and various insects,including fleas,beetles are obligatory intermediate hosts of this cestode.H.nana infections are much more common in humans because,in addition to being spread by insects,the disease can be spread directly from person to person by eggs in faeces.M.moniliformis,is a cosmopolitan acanthocephalan parasite of rodents whose development has been traced through cockroach.C.hepatica is the only nematode parasite that inhabits the liver of the host during adult stage of the life cycle.The usual hosts for the adult parasite are rodents,particularly rats and mice,but infections have also been recorded in other animals.We reported the natural occurrence of Capillaria hepatica infection in the liver of B.bengalensis.Gross lesions comprising of pale cystic areas or streaks on the surface of liver in rats revealed the presence of eggs of C.hepatica scattered in the parenchyma of the liver.Histologically,granulomatous reaction around the eggs,adult worms and dead components of parasites were observed.In addition,rodents also act as reservoirs of many protozoan parasites which are transmitted by insect vectors T.lewisi,transmitted by fleas,is common in Rattus rattus and R.norvegicus.T.evansi,a highly pathogenic species to rodents is mechanically transmitted by Tabanid flies.Visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis is essentially a disease of rodents transmitted to humans by sand flies.Babesiosis,caused by Babesia microti is an emerging,tick-transmitted,zoonotic disease.There is a need for epidemiological investigations,assessment and regular monitoring of level of infections carried by wild rodents,damages caused by parasitic infections,reliable and rapid diagnostic techniques along with assessment of efficacy of chemotherapeutics against hazardous zoonotic parasites.Measures should be adopted to control or eradicate populations of rodents heavily infested with zoonotic parasites as well as parasites those can be transmitted to other domestic and wildlife.I hope that the data presented in this paper will contribute towards understanding of current status of parasitic infections in wild rodents.