A novel myxozoan parasite of terrestrial mammals: description of Soricimyxum minuti sp. n. (Myxosporea) in pygmy shrew Sorex minutus from Hungary

Székely, Csaba and Cech, Gábor and Atkinson, Stephen D. and Molnár, Kálmán and Egyed, László and Gubányi, András (2015) A novel myxozoan parasite of terrestrial mammals: description of Soricimyxum minuti sp. n. (Myxosporea) in pygmy shrew Sorex minutus from Hungary. Folia Parasitologica, 62. pp. 1-5. ISSN 1803-6465

Preview

Text Folia2015Soricimyxumminuti.pdf Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

As part of a biodiversity study in northwestern Hungary, we conducted a parasitological survey of small mammals. In both common shrews (Sorex araneus Linnaeus) and pygmy shrews (Sorex minutus Linnaeus), we found myxospores of a species of Soricimyxum Prunescu, Prunescu, Pucek et Lom, 2007 (Myxosporea) and plasmodia in the bile ducts within the liver. Spores from both species of shrewswere morphologically and morphometrically indistinguishable, but differed in their SSU rRNA gene sequences by 3.3%. We identified spores and developmental stages from the common shrew as Soricimyxum fegati Prunescu, Prunescu, Pucek et Lom, 2007, based on morphometric data and DNA sequence similarity. Spores from the pygmy shrew were only 96.7% similar to S. fegati, hence we identified them as a novel myxosporean Soricimyxum minuti sp. n. This is only the second myxosporean parasite species described from mammals.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item