Methods

Sampling was performed at three sites in the Tapajós River mouth, Pará State, Brazil, and an aliquot of blood was collected from each turtle by post-occipital dorsal vein puncture. The aliquots were used for the determination of hematological parameters and for the study of hemoparasites in the blood samples.

Results

A total of 37 turtles were sampled: 21 Podocnemis expansa, three P. sextuberculata, nine P. unifilis, and four P. erythrocephala. Parasitological analyses showed inclusions in erythrocytes compatible with Haemogregarina sp., representing an overall prevalence of parasitized animals of 64.8% with an average of 94,789 parasites/ml of blood. In this study, the evolutionary forms of Haemogregarina spp. from trophozoites, pre-meronts, meronts, and mature and immature gamonts were observed in three species of freshwater turtle species, and one morphotype of the parasite with high similarity to Haemogregarina podocnemis has been observed.

Conclusion

Despite recent research on freshwater turtles, this study provides new information on the intensity of blood parasite infection and hematological parameters of free-living animals, highlighting the need for studies on infected and uninfected animals from the same population.

中文翻译：

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巴西亚马逊四种淡水龟（龟类：Podocnemididae）的血液寄生虫分析和血液学参数

方法

在巴西帕拉州塔帕若斯河口的三个地点进行了采样，并通过后枕背静脉穿刺从每只海龟身上采集了等份血液。等分试样用于测定血液学参数和研究血液样本中的血液寄生虫。

结果

总共对 37 只海龟进行了采样：21 只Podocnemis expansa、3 只P. sextuberculata、9 只P. unifilis和 4 只P. erythrocephala。寄生虫学分析显示红细胞中的内含物与血脂藻相容，代表被寄生动物的总体患病率为 64.8%，平均每毫升血液中有 94,789 只寄生虫。在这项研究中， Haemogregarina spp的进化形式。在三种淡水龟种中观察到来自滋养体、前体体、体体以及成熟和未成熟配子的寄生虫​​，并且观察到一种与波多克尼米血脂虫高度相似的寄生虫形态型。

结论

尽管最近对淡水龟进行了研究，但这项研究提供了有关自由生活动物的血液寄生虫感染强度和血液学参数的新信息，强调了对同一种群的感染和未感染动物进行研究的必要性。