Redescription of Hepatozoon ameivae (Carini and Rudolph, 1912) from the lizard Ameiva ameiva (Linnaeus, 1758)

Under the light: high prevalence of haemoparasites in lizards (Reptilia: Squamata) from Central Amazonia revealed by microscopy

“…This parasite has an outstanding feature: its gametocytes are found in the erythrocyte nucleus, a relatively uncommon developmental pattern in the Apicomplexa that can lead to severe distortion and even lysis of the infected cell nucleus (Telford 2009). It is important to note that H. ameivae found here was morphologically and molecularly characterized, and the analysis of its phylogenetic position clearly showed that this parasite belongs to the genus Hepatozoon (Picelli et al 2020).…”

A 50-year-old redescription: molecular and morphometric characterization of Hepatozoon carinicauda Pessôa and Cavalheiro, 1969 in the brown-banded water snake Helicops angulatus (Linnaeus, 1758)

“…The distance matrix showed that the divergence ( P value) between the Hepatozoon 18S rRNA sequences obtained herein and in reptiles from previous studies carried out in Brazil varied from 1.86 to 6.5% (Table 2). The Hepatozoon ameivae (Carini and Rudolph, 1912) sequence obtained from the lizard Ameiva ameiva (Linnaeus, 1758) (Picelli et al ., 2020) was the closest, with a distance of 1.86% (Table 2). Among the Hepatozoon sequences obtained from snakes in Brazil, the closest were those from H. musa , which had a divergence from 1.88 to 2.2%, followed by H. cuestensis , which had a divergence from 2.1 to 2.3%, H. massardii , with a distance of 2.5%, and H. cevapii , which had a divergence of distance ranging from 2.3 to 2.7% (Table 2).…”

“…Morphometric and morphological differences can also be found among H. carinicauda and phylogenetically close haemogregarine species infecting lizards and snakes, such as H. ameivae, H. cuestensis and H. musa. Gamonts of H. ameivae, in addition to being smaller (14.28 × 4.50 μm), possess the outstanding feature of overlapping the host cell nucleus (Picelli et al, 2020), a trait not observed in H. carinicauda. Hepatozoon cuestensis forms have arched ends, uniform cytoplasm and are smaller in size (17.07 × 3.6 μm) (O'Dwyer et al, 2013).…”

“…large dimensions that considerably deform the erythrocytes). Other studies that employed integrative taxonomy started from the same assumption, such as H. ameivae in the lizard A. ameiva , whose gamonts overlap the host cell nucleus (Picelli et al ., 2020), and the redescription of H. ophisauri in the lizard P. apodus , which has unusual pink inclusions, and Hepatozoon colubri (Borner, 1901) in the snake Zamenis longissimus (Laurenti, 1768), which presents a degeneration zone in the cytoplasm, and connection to the nucleus of the host cell (Zechmeisterová et al ., 2021).…”

“…Nineteen sequences retrieved from GenBank (MN833641, MF435047, MF435048, KX880079, MF497763, MF497764, MF497765, MF497766, MF497767, KC342524, MF497769, MF497770, KC342526, MW241134, MW241135, KC342525, MF322538, MF322539, MW591599) and aligned using the MAFFT software package (version 7) (Katoh et al ., 2019), resulting in an alignment of 461 bp, were used to evaluate the genetic diversity of the 18S rRNA gene from Hepatozoon spp. detected in the snake in the present study and in reptiles from previous studies in Brazil (O'Dwyer et al ., 2013, Borges-Nojosa et al ., 2017; Bouer et al ., 2017; Úngari et al ., 2018, 2021; Picelli et al ., 2020). Nucleotide diversity (Pi), haplotype diversity (Hd), number of haplotypes (h), total number of mutations (Eta) and average number of nucleotide differences (k), using DnaSP v5 software (Librado and Rozas, 2009), were calculated.…”