Some blood parasits of the Brazilian lizards Plica umbra and Uranoscodon superciliosa (Iguanidae)

• Autor(a) principal: Lainson, Ralph
• Data de Publicação: 1975
• Outros Autores: Shaw, Jeffrey Jon, Landau, Irène
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Digital do Instituto Evandro Chagas (Patuá)
• Texto Completo: https://patua.iec.gov.br/handle/iec/682
• topic: Lagartos; Lagartos / parasitologia; Brasil (BR)

An examination of 235 Plica umbra and 167 Uranoscodon superciliosa (Sauria: Iguanidae) from Belém,Pará, Brazil, has revealed a number of hitherto undescribed blood parasites. These include Fallisia audaciosa, F. simplex, Garnia multiformis, Plasmodium vacuolatum and Trypanosoma plicae spp.nov., alI in P. umbra, and G. uranoscodoni sp.nov. in U. superciliosa. In addition, both species of lizards showed occasional Eperythrozoon and microfilaria infections. Among the haemosporines, F. audaciosa is particularly interesting in its restriction to the neutrophils; and G. multiformis for its early development in erythroblasts of the bone-marrow, and its variable morphology in subsequent stages of the infection in the peripheral blood. Mixed infections of the different haemosporines resulted in 18 combinations of parasites in P. umbra, indicating the importance of examining a large number of these animaIs when preparing descriptions of the individual organisms. T. plicae is a large, broad trypanosome, averaging 57.0 x 16.0 um. Isolation ofthe parasite was made from four out of six P. umbra, after the culture of heart blood in NNN medium: the fact that none of the four positive lizards showed detectable trypanosomes in the peripheral blood suggests a high incidence of occult infections. The incidence among the remaining 229 P. umbra, as given by the direct examination of blood-films, was only 10.0 %.