Beschreibung:
<p>During 2017–2018, a survey for the rat lungworm, <italic>Angiostrongylus cantonensis</italic> (Nematoda: Metastrongyloidea), in rodents from Piedmont and Lower Coastal Plains physiographic regions of Georgia was conducted. On 4 occasions, a single worm was recovered from the pulmonary vessels of a single cotton rat (<italic>Sigmodon hispidis</italic>). One of these worms was identified as a <italic>Physaloptera</italic> sp. and the remaining 3 as a <italic>Mastophorus</italic> sp. by morphology. No <italic>A. cantonensis</italic> were found. <italic>Physaloptera</italic> (Nematoda: Physalopteroidea) and <italic>Mastophorus</italic> species (Nematoda: Spiruroidea) are stomach parasites of many wild and domestic animals. This is the first report of these species in the pulmonary vessels of a definitive host. To better characterize these parasites, representative specimens were collected from cotton rat stomachs and identified morphologically and molecularly. Based on partial cytochrome <italic>c</italic> oxidase subunit 1 (<italic>COI</italic>) gene sequences, <italic>Physaloptera hispida</italic> from stomachs were identical to the <italic>Physaloptera</italic> sp. from the pulmonary vessels. The <italic>COI</italic> sequences from the <italic>Mastophorus</italic> sp. from the stomach exhibited a higher degree of variability but confirmed that the pulmonary worms were the same <italic>Mastophorus</italic> species. Furthermore, sequences of <italic>Mastophorus</italic> from a coastal site clustered separately from a clade of <italic>Mastophorus</italic> sequences from cotton rats from a Piedmont site. Our data show that adult worms recovered from pulmonary vessels of cotton rats could be either <italic>Physaloptera</italic> or <italic>Mastophorus</italic> sp., indicating that these parasitic worms are not always restricted to the stomach and that worms from pulmonary vessels must be carefully examined to obtain a definitive diagnosis of <italic>A. cantonensis</italic> infection.</p>