AETIOLOGY
Two species of coccidia have been identified in short- beaked echidnas: Eimeria tachyglossi and E. echidnae. A coccidian, Octosporella hystrix previously reported in echidnas, is now considered an Adelina sp., a genus of coccidia parasitising invertebrates and therefore a pseudoparasite if found in echidnas (Barker et al.
1985; Debenham et al. 2012). Specialist microscopy techniques must be used to accurately distinguish differences in the sporulated oocysts of E. tachyglossi and E. echidnae; those of E. tachyglossi are larger and contain larger, more ovoid sporocysts than those of E. echidnae, but there is some overlap (Debenham et al. 2012). Organisms within monocytes previously identified as Hepatozoon tachyglossi (Ploeg et al. 2008), and unidentified visceral protozoans (Whittington and Obendorf 2012), have recently been confirmed as E. echidnae using deep-sequencing molecular technology (Slapeta et al. 2017). This study confirmed E. echidnae within monocytes of one healthy echidna and within the liver, lung, kidney and spleen of an echidna that died of systemic coccidiosis. Although the study confirmed E. echidnae as the cause of systemic coccidiosis for the first time in one echidna, it does not rule out the potential for E. tachyglossi to cause systemic coccidiosis in echidnas (J Slapeta pers. comm.).2.
More on the topic AETIOLOGY:
- AETIOLOGY
- AETIOLOGY
- AETIOLOGY AND EPIDEMIOLOGY
- PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE
- Marine mammals can serve as sentinels for public health, and recent research on Southern Hemisphere pinnipeds has focused on their role within the context of One Health (Bossart 2011; Lynch et al. 2011c; Rengifo- Herrera et al. 2012; Tryland et al. 2012; Delport et al. 2014).
- NON-INFECTIOUS DISEASE
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- References
- DISEASES
- DIAGNOSTIC APPROACHES
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