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Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()

Pentastomids are endoparasites of the respiratory system of vertebrates, maturing primarily in carnivorous reptiles. Adult and larval pentastomids can cause severe pathology resulting in the death of their intermediate and definitive hosts. The study of pentastomids is a neglected field, impaired by...

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Autores principales: Kelehear, Crystal, Spratt, David M., O’Meally, Denis, Shine, Richard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047961/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24918074
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2013.12.003
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author Kelehear, Crystal
Spratt, David M.
O’Meally, Denis
Shine, Richard
author_facet Kelehear, Crystal
Spratt, David M.
O’Meally, Denis
Shine, Richard
author_sort Kelehear, Crystal
collection PubMed
description Pentastomids are endoparasites of the respiratory system of vertebrates, maturing primarily in carnivorous reptiles. Adult and larval pentastomids can cause severe pathology resulting in the death of their intermediate and definitive hosts. The study of pentastomids is a neglected field, impaired by risk of zoonoses, difficulties in species identification, and life cycle complexities. We surveyed wild snakes in the tropics of Australia to clarify which host species possess these parasites, and then sought to identify these pentastomids using a combination of morphological and molecular techniques. We detected pentastomid infections in 59% of the 81 snakes surveyed. The ubiquity of pentastomid infections in snakes of the Australian tropics sampled in this study is alarmingly high considering the often-adverse consequences of infection and the recognized zoonotic potential of these parasites. The pentastomids were of the genera Raillietiella and Waddycephalus and infected a range of host taxa, encompassing seven snake species from three snake families. All seven snake species represent new host records for pentastomids of the genera Raillietiella and/or Waddycephalus. The arboreal colubrid Dendrelaphis punctulatus and the terrestrial elapid Demansia vestigiata had particularly high infection prevalences (79% and 100% infected, respectively). Raillietiella orientalis infected 38% of the snakes surveyed, especially frog-eating species, implying a frog intermediate host for this parasite. Raillietiella orientalis was previously known only from Asian snakes and has invaded Australia via an unknown pathway. Our molecular data indicated that five species of Waddycephalus infect 28% of snakes in the surveyed area. Our morphological data indicate that features of pentastomid anatomy previously utilised to identify species of the genus Waddycephalus are unreliable for distinguishing species, highlighting the need for additional taxonomic work on this genus.
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spelling pubmed-40479612014-06-10 Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics() Kelehear, Crystal Spratt, David M. O’Meally, Denis Shine, Richard Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildl Article Pentastomids are endoparasites of the respiratory system of vertebrates, maturing primarily in carnivorous reptiles. Adult and larval pentastomids can cause severe pathology resulting in the death of their intermediate and definitive hosts. The study of pentastomids is a neglected field, impaired by risk of zoonoses, difficulties in species identification, and life cycle complexities. We surveyed wild snakes in the tropics of Australia to clarify which host species possess these parasites, and then sought to identify these pentastomids using a combination of morphological and molecular techniques. We detected pentastomid infections in 59% of the 81 snakes surveyed. The ubiquity of pentastomid infections in snakes of the Australian tropics sampled in this study is alarmingly high considering the often-adverse consequences of infection and the recognized zoonotic potential of these parasites. The pentastomids were of the genera Raillietiella and Waddycephalus and infected a range of host taxa, encompassing seven snake species from three snake families. All seven snake species represent new host records for pentastomids of the genera Raillietiella and/or Waddycephalus. The arboreal colubrid Dendrelaphis punctulatus and the terrestrial elapid Demansia vestigiata had particularly high infection prevalences (79% and 100% infected, respectively). Raillietiella orientalis infected 38% of the snakes surveyed, especially frog-eating species, implying a frog intermediate host for this parasite. Raillietiella orientalis was previously known only from Asian snakes and has invaded Australia via an unknown pathway. Our molecular data indicated that five species of Waddycephalus infect 28% of snakes in the surveyed area. Our morphological data indicate that features of pentastomid anatomy previously utilised to identify species of the genus Waddycephalus are unreliable for distinguishing species, highlighting the need for additional taxonomic work on this genus. Elsevier 2013-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC4047961/ /pubmed/24918074 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2013.12.003 Text en © 2014 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Article
Kelehear, Crystal
Spratt, David M.
O’Meally, Denis
Shine, Richard
Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()
title Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()
title_full Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()
title_fullStr Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()
title_full_unstemmed Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()
title_short Pentastomids of wild snakes in the Australian tropics()
title_sort pentastomids of wild snakes in the australian tropics()
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047961/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24918074
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2013.12.003
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