SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY OF THE SARCOCYSTS OF SIX SPECIES OF SARCOCYSTIS FROM REINDEER (RANGIFER TARANDUS TARANDUS)

Abstract

Sarcocysts belonging to six species of Sarcocystis were isolated from the musculature of reindeer and examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to reveal their surface morphology. Sarcocysts of S. grueneri had thin, strip‐like surface processes, cysts of S. rangi had long hair‐like processes, and cysts of S. tarandivulpes had short, knob‐like processes interconnected by microfolds. Cysts of S. hardangeri had prominent, slanting linguiform processes, whereas the cysts of both S. tarandi and S. rangiferi had upright finger‐like surface projections. The processes of S. rangiferi were thicker and longer than those of S. tarandi. SEM of the cysts of these species corroborated and supplemented previous descriptions of their surface morphology, which were based on transmission electron microscopy.

Sarcocystis in moose (Alces alces): molecular identification and phylogeny of six Sarcocystis species in moose, and a morphological description of three new species

“…Sarcocysts of S. ovalis found in the skeletal muscle of moose in this study had a very similar morphology to S. hardangeri of reindeer both by LM and SEM (Gjerde 1984(Gjerde , 1986. Moreover, TEM studies of S. hardangeri by Gjerde (1985c) indicated that this species was very similar to the type B cysts that Colwell and Mahrt (1981) had described by TEM (Figs.…”

“…To avoid losing cysts during processing, several fixed cysts were transferred to small nylon bags (Nytal®), as described previously (Gjerde 1986). The bags containing the cysts were dehydrated in an ascending ethanol series, comprising 30-100% ethanol, and then critical point dried in a E3100 Critical Point Dryer (Bio-Rad, UK), with carbon dioxide as transitional fluid.…”

“…However, Figs. 4a-f in their publication show that the protrusions are not consistent with the hair-like configuration of S. alceslatrans, but are instead thin, flat, and band-like, similar to the protrusions of S. grueneri of reindeer (Gjerde 1985b(Gjerde , 1986, S. cervicanis/S. wapiti of Cervus elaphus (red deer/wapiti; Hernández et al 1981;Speer and Dubey 1982), and a Sarcocystis sp.…”

Morphological and molecular characterization and phylogenetic placement of Sarcocystis capreolicanis and Sarcocystis silva n. sp. from roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in Norway

“…In contrast, five to six Sarcocystis species have been found in each of the three other common cervids in Norway, i.e. reindeer, moose and red deer (Gjerde 1986;Dahlgren and Gjerde 2007, 2008, 2010a. Moreover, at least three more sarcocyst types than those representing S. gracilis and S. oviformis have been reported from roe deer elsewhere in Europe, and the failure to detect any of these species in the previous study was thought to be due mainly to the small number (n=6) of animals examined (Dahlgren and Gjerde 2009).…”

Sarcocystis mehlhorni, n. sp. (Apicomplexa: Sarcocystidae) from the black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus)

“…The ultrastructure of S. odocoileocanis from the BTD broadly resembles the structure of sarcocysts of S. hemionilatrantis in mule deer from the USA and S. tarandivulpes from the reindeer in Scandinavia (Gjerde 1984a, Gjerde 1985, Gjerde 1986 (Table 1).…”