First record of natural infection with Anaplasma marginale in sucking lice infesting the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) in Mexico.

Abstract

The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is an Asian species of bovine which was introduced in Mexico in 1992, as an alternative for milk and meat production. However, little is known about its associated ectoparasites, in particular about their lice. As a part of a project to identify the diversity and prevalence of Anaplasma in cattle and water buffaloes in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, we visited a ranch in the downtown area in which 42 buffaloes were visually inspected for the presence of ectoparasites. Lice were manually recovered, and morphologically identified using taxonomic keys. They were also molecularly identified by the amplification of a fragment of the cytochrome oxidase C subunit I gene (COX1). As a result, we recovered 20 lice from eight animals. All lice were identified as Haematopinus tuberculatus, and the recovered sequences exhibited a similarity of 99.7% with those of the same species deposited in GenBank. Additionally, we detected the presence of Anaplasma marginale in 70% (14/20) of the analysed samples. Our results represent the first record of this exotic ectoparasite for the country.