Understanding how small-scale rural communities perceive and manage invertebrate pests and parasites provides crucial insights for sustainable agro-ecological systems. This study compares the traditional ecological knowledge of Hungarian-speaking small-scale farmers and herders in two Central European regions regarding pest and parasite taxa affecting crops, livestock, and households. Forty informants were interviewed using photographs, semi-structured interviews, and picture sorting to document folk taxa, local names, salient features, uses, damage, attitudes, and associated proverbs.
Altogether, over 90% of recorded invertebrate folk taxa had distinct vernacular names, and 49% were known to at least half of the participants. Both groups displayed high ecological awareness, accurately linking species’ presence to habitat conditions and weather (e.g., liver fluke with wet pastures; slugs with rainfall). Farmers’ knowledge centred on soil- and crop-related pests (slugs, wireworms, flea beetles, caterpillars, stored-grain insects), while herders primarily focused on veterinary and zoonotic parasites (liver fluke, ticks, tapeworms, itch mites). Distinct yet complementary knowledge systems emerged: herders emphasized grazing avoidance, simple surgical operations, and topical home remedies for animal parasites, whereas farmers described hand-picking, baiting, burning, and using domestic fowl to control garden and field pests.
Shared features included strong pest–habitat reasoning, practical low-input management, and moral categorization of invertebrates as mainly harmful. However, both groups expressed selective tolerance toward culturally valued taxa such as edible snails and medicinal leeches. Proverbs and weather-linked sayings served as mnemonic tools for forecasting pest emergence and guiding management timing.
These findings highlight a complementary “pasture–field–household” continuum of ecological vigilance, where herders’ veterinary-parasitological and farmers’ agro-entomological expertise together form an integrated local biosecurity knowledge system. Recognizing such nuanced, practice-based ethnoecological knowledge can inform participatory pest management and strengthen agroecosystem resilience within traditional European rural landscapes.