Acta Biológica Colombiana (Jan 2000)
Blood parasites in birds of the eastern planes of Colombia (Villavicencio y San Miguel, Meta - Colombia)
Abstract
The study was carried out in the eastern plains from June to September 1999. The material wascollected in Villavicencio and San Miguel (Meta - Colombia). A total of 315 birds representing74 species of 23 families were examined for haematozoa. 50 birds harboured blood parasites.These included: Microfilariae(8.25%); Haemoproteus(6.67%); Plasmodiumand Trypanosoma(0.95%) and Hepatozoon(0.32%). The prevalence of infection is this sample is low in comparisonto that recorded for Neartic birds as reported by Greiner et al. (1975); but higher than therecorded for neotropical region by White and coworkers (1978). The most striking aspect ofthis survey, is the high prevalence of Microfilariaecompared to that recorded elsewhere in theworld, almost 50% of the total infection. We hypothesize that microfilariaeare transmitted bya vector that is not utilized by either the haemoproteids or the plasmodiids. Finally 8 specieswere examined for blood parasites for the first time, 15 new host-parasite records for the worldand 15 new for Colombia were established from this sample. This survey and other similarstudies, clearly indicate that research on this topic is urgently required, particularly since thereare direct correlations between stress (e.g. from habitat destruction) and pathogenicity ofhaematozoa to their bird hosts.
