Abstract
An adult male puma (Puma concolor), hit by a car in an urban area, died three days later despite the therapeutic support provided. At necropsy, multiple firm nodules were identified in the gastric mucosa. The nodules were coated by an intact mucosa with a central opening from which reddish and cylindrical nematodes protruded into the lumen. Twenty-seven nematodes were retrieved for morphological and morphometric evaluations. During histopathological examination of the gastric tissue, the adult nematodes appear in longitudinal and transverse sections, surrounded by thick bands of collagen, interspersed with mixed inflammatory infiltrates. The nematodes had an eosinophilic cuticle with caudal serrated projections (bulbar type), coelomyarian musculature, pseudocoelom, and females with uterus containing numerous larvated eggs, characteristics consistent with the Cylicospirura genus. Morphologically, female nematodes had six large tricuspid teeth in the oral cavity and the vulva had an opening anterior to the esophagus-intestinal junction. Male nematodes had five pairs of small papillae near the tip of the tail. These findings were consistent with Cylicospirura felineus. This parasite should be included in the differential diagnosis of nodular gastric wall lesions in wild felids.
Highlights
Puma (Puma concolor Linnaeus, 1771) belongs to the order Carnivora and Felidae family
A post mortem examination was performed at the Pathology Sector of the Veterinary School of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee for Animal Research of the UFMG under protocol 332/2013 and by the biodiversity information and authorization system (SISBIO) of the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio) under license 34633-5
Summary
Puma (Puma concolor Linnaeus, 1771) belongs to the order Carnivora and Felidae family. It is the most widely distributed large terrestrial mammal in the neotropical region, found in southern Canada and spread to the southernmost regions of South America (Wainwright et al, 2010; Vickers et al, 2015). C. felineus was first described in domestic cats from India as Spirocerca felineus (Chandler, 1925). It was later renamed Cylicospirura felineus when reported in Felis bengalensis (synonym Prionailurus bengalensis) (Sandground, 1932). The genus Cylicospirura has been documented in domestic and wild felids in India (Chandler, 1925), Italy (Ibba et al, 2014), southern Africa (Junker et al, 2013), North America (Crossland et al, 2015; Ferguson et al, 2011; Pence et al, 1978), and South America, including Brazil (Gallas et al, 2014; Vieira et al, 2017)
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