Golden jackal populations in the Balkans are increasing and spreading its range. Nowadays vagrant specimens are reaching the northern parts of Europe. As one of the prerequisites for actual population increase is a solid food base, we examined the feeding habits of adult and juvenile jackals in Serbia in the period of cub dependency stage. Stomach content of 49 adults and 28 cubs from period July-October were analyzed. Juvenile jackals had less diverse diet than the adults, represented with eight food categories. During this part of the year, jackals of both age categories were mostly consuming small mammals. Moreover, they were the main prey category in the diet of juveniles (49.82 %B and 32.08 %O). No game species were recorded in the diet of juvenile jackals. During their first summer and autumn, jackal cubs already manifest the opportunistic feeding behavior. They take advantage of easily accessible food sources such as fruit and slaughter leftovers from domestic ungulates and poultry.

In Serbia, human echinococcosis cases are predominantly diagnosed as the cystic form, caused by Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s. l.) complex tapeworms. Alveolar echinococcosis, a more severe disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis, emerged recently. Domestic dogs have been implicated in the transmission of E. granulosus sensu stricto G1/3 to humans. In an ongoing screening of definitive hosts for the presence of Echinococcus spp. to discover reservoirs of E. multilocularis, fecal samples of hunting (n = 29) and stray dogs (n = 66) were examined. Taeniid eggs were collected using flotation and mesh filtration. The presence of Cyclophyllidea, E. granulosus s. l. and E. multilocularis DNA was detected by specific PCR assays. In total, 60% of the fecal samples contained cyclophyllidean DNA, while Echinococcus spp. DNA was detected in 7.4% of the samples. E. canadensis G6–8,10 DNA was present in 4.2% and E. multilocularis in 3.2% of the samples. E. multilocularis DNA was detected only in stray dog feces, suggesting that strays are a reservoir and possibly an important link in the transmission chain. To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first molecular identification of Echinococcus spp. in dogs in Serbia.