Plasmodium lygosomae n. sp., a Parasite of a New Zealand Skink, Lygosoma moco (Gray, 1839)

Abstract

Sixteen species of the genus Plasmodium, the status of two of which is in question, Wenyon (1926) regarding these as belonging to the genus Haemoproteus, have already been described from lizards (Thompson and Huff, 1944b; Thompson and Hart, 1946). Seven of the fourteen apparently valid species hitherto known are restricted to hosts within the family IGUANIDAE, and five are known from the family SCINCIDAE. Four of the species of the latter group parasitize skinks of the genus Mabuia in Africa and Brazil, while the other one, Plasmodium lacertiliae Thompson and Hart, 1946, is found in the blood of Leiolepisma fuscum on Goodenough Island, Territory of Papua, New Guinea. The subject of the present account, the sixth species of Plasmodium to be described from the family SCINCIDAE, differs from all but one of the previously described saurian plasmodia, P. mexicanum Thompson and Huff (1944a) in exhibiting exoerythrocytic schizogony, and is separated from this species on the bases of trophozoite and gametocyte morphology. It bears numerous morphological resemblances to several other saurian plasmodia, particularly P. lacertiliae, a species for which there is reason to believe that future investigations may conceivably reveal the presence of exoerythrocytic schizogony, but differs in detail from this and other saurian species as outlined in the account. As Leiolepisma fuscum is the host of P. lacertiliae, the affinities of this Papuan Plasmodium with the New Zealand species are of particular interest, for some herpetologists consider that Lygosoma moco, the host of P. lygosomae n. sp., should be transferred to the genus Leiolepisma (Mr. C. W. McCann, Dominion Museum, Wellington; private communication).