Update on selected topics in acanthocephalan parasites research

The respectable community of parasitologists aimed at the broad-spectral research of acanthocephalan parasites met at the 9^th Acanthocephalan Workshop. The workshop took place in the beautiful surroundings of the High Tatras, Slovakia in the Congress Centre Academia, Stará Lesná near Tatranská Lomnica on September 9 - 13^th. This special event was hosted by the Slovak Society for Parasitology, the Institute of Parasitology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Košice, Slovakia, and the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic. It consisted of nearly three dozen lectures presented by distinguished acanthocephalan specialists who came from 13 countries and five continents. Vibrant discussions and creating new plans for future collaborations were accompanied by local mountain touring that offered the venue richly endowed with nature, deep forests and beautiful mountains. The contributions were addressed to resolve current systematic, taxonomic, biological, behavioural, ecological, and related topics. Presented results showed the most recent progressive developments comparable with all the other parasitic worm groups. The 10^th Acanthocephalan Workshop will be hosted by Dr. Marie-Jeanne Perrot-Minnot, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, Bourgogne, France, in 2022.