**1. Introduction**

134 Malaria Parasites

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In 1902, Sir Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the mosquito transmission of malaria. This finding was achieved working with avian malaria and its vector, giving him a control over his experimental subjects difficult to attain with human models. Since then, malaria parasites of birds have played an essential role as a model in human malaria studies. Important advances in medical parasitology such of the study of the life cycle, development of chemotherapy, and cultivation *in vitro* have initially been developed using bird haemosporidian models. Significant anti-malarial compounds such as plasmochin, primaquine and atebrin were evaluated in bird model. In the same way bird parasites were used for drug testing and for further malaria-associated experiments. Nowadays, research on bird malaria is at the very peak since scientists have realized the benefits of using studies on avian malaria to answer ecological, behavioural and evolutionary questions. This review will highlight the importance of studies on avian malaria, showing the results of some recent investigations on this topic and describing new applications of avian malaria researches that could be useful for conservation and health policies in 21th century.
