Mesocestoidessp. in Wild Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) and Scaled Quail (Callipepla squamata)

Abstract

Mesocestoides spp. have a cosmopolitan distribution with zoonotic potential. Mesocestoides tetrathyridia were found under the pericardial sac, on the surface of the crop, and in the peritoneal cavity of a hunter-harvested Northern Bobwhite ( Colinus virginianus) and a Scaled Quail ( Callipepla squamata) collected during the 2016-17 quail hunting season in northwest and southern Texas, US respectively. Molecular analysis indicated that the tetrathyridia from the birds likely belonged to an undescribed species and are identical to pretetrathyridium stages recently found in Scincella lateralis skinks in Oklahoma. This is the first report of Mesocestoides from North American birds.

Massive infection of a song thrush by Mesocestoides sp. (Cestoda) tetrathyridia that genetically match acephalic metacestodes causing lethal peritoneal larval cestodiasis in domesticated mammals

“…The morphology of the above-described metacestodes isolated from T. philomelos in Czechia is in agreement with previous descriptions of tetrathyridia of Mesocestoides [13–15, 17, 20, 21, 44–46]. The identification of tetrathyridia to the species level based on their morphology is, however, nearly impossible at the present stage [18, 29, 44].…”

Rodents as intermediate hosts of cestode parasites of mammalian carnivores and birds of prey in Poland, with the first data on the life-cycle of Mesocestoides melesi

“…Although genetic divergence for 18S rDNA between our unique isolates and these Mesocestoides spp. was only about 1-3%, much higher divergence was noted for the mitochondrial markers, 9-10% for 12S rDNA and 11-12% for cox1, which is enough to consider that these isolates must be a distinct tapeworm species with a novel genetic signature [6,11,35,36]. On balance, taking into account both our morphological observations on adult worms and the genetic analysis, the samples in this clade are most likely to represent M. melesi.…”

“…The systematics of Mesocestoides spp. is still not fully resolved [11,12] and the unarmed scolex and pleomorphic metacestodes/larvae (tetrathyridia) found in rodents and other intermediate hosts (insectivore mammals, birds, reptiles, etc. ), do not provide sufficient characteristic features to enable unambiguous differentiation between species.…”

Tetrathyridia in an endemic lizard from Chile: molecular evidence for South America

“…Only one male lizard (prevalence = 5.5%) from the Cañas de Michío site was found parasitized with a total of 138 tapeworm larvae, morphologically compatible with tetrathyridia of Mesocestoides (Skirnisson et al 2016b; Kubečka et al 2018; McAllister et al 2018). All tetrathyridia were free throughout the coelomic cavity; none was found encysted in the parenchyma or adhered to the serosa of any organ.…”

“…However, none of these studies supported the morphological diagnoses with genetic evidence. Therefore, there is an evident need to elucidate the life cycles of these tapeworms by applying an integrative taxonomic approach, i.e., combining morphological and molecular analyses to delimit species (Kubečka et al 2018; McAllister et al 2018; Jesudoss Chelladurai & Brewer 2021).…”