A novel coccidian (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) from Scotophilus leucogaster (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in southern Saud
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PROTOZOOLOGY - ORIGINAL PAPER
A novel coccidian (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) from Scotophilus leucogaster (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in southern Saudi Arabia Osama B. Mohammed 1
&
Donald W. Duszynski 2 & Nabil Amor 1 & Albdulaziz N. Alagaili 1
Received: 6 April 2020 / Accepted: 28 September 2020 / Published online: 3 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract A novel species of coccidia, resembling a member of the genus Eimeria, was found in bats, Scotophilus leucogaster, collected in southern Saudi Arabia has been described on the basis of unsporulated oocysts and DNA sequencing of the Internal Transcribed Spacer 1 (ITS1) and partial 18S rDNA regions. Unsporulated oocysts of this form are ovoidal to spheroidal and had a 2-layered wall, 1.5–2.0 (1.9 ± 0.2); the outer layer was light blue with striations, and thicker than the inner, darker layer. No micropyle was present. Unsporulated oocysts (N = 150) measured 27.2 × 22.1 (25–30 × 20–25), length width ratio, 1.2 (1.1–1.4). There was no evidence of an oocyst residuum and/or polar granule. This parasite was detected in 2/7 (29%) S. leucogaster collected from southern Saudi Arabia. Oocysts incubated at 25 °C in 2.5% K2Cr2O7 did not sporulate after > 1 month. Unsporulated oocyst measurements were compared with other coccidian parasites of bats that discharge oocysts in their feces. Sequences of the ITS1 and the 18S rDNA regions obtained from the unsporulated oocysts grouped this coccidium from S. leucogaster with eimerian species from various rodent and squirrel species. It is critical that future investigators obtain fully sporulated oocysts of this coccidium for full description of the parasite recovered in our study so it can be correctly assigned to genus and given an accurate binomial. Keywords Bats . Scotophilus leucogaster . Eimeria . 18S rDNA . ITS1 . Unsporulated oocysts . Saudi Arabia
Introduction A systematic revision on the intestinal coccidian parasites (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) of the order Chiroptera (bats) revealed 31 valid species, all in the genus Eimeria (Duszynski 2002), and 21/31 (65%) Eimeria species were found and described previously in 9 genera representing 16 species in the Vespertilionidae, the largest family of bats containing 407 species in 48 genera (Simmons 2005). Identification and description of eimerian species were generally dependent on oocyst morphology and host specificity before the emergence of molecular techniques (Levine 1982; Duszynski and Wilber Section Editor: David S. Lindsay * Osama B. Mohammed [email protected] 1
Mammals Research Chair, Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
2
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
1997; Carvalho et al. 2011). Since the revision of Duszynski (2002), at least 6 more Eimeria spp. were discovered and named from an additional 4 bat species in 2 additional genera of vespertilionids (McAllister and Upton 2009; McAllister et al. 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017). Bo
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