Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2021 | 13(11): 19663–19664

 

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) 

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5869.13.11.19663-19664

#5869 | Received 14 March 2020 | Final received 14 April 2021 | Finally accepted 09 August 2021

 

 

Intestinal coccidiosis (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) in a Himalayan Griffon Vulture Gyps himalayensis

 

Vimalraj Padayatchiar Govindan 1, Parag Madhukar Dhakate 2 & Ayush Uniyal 3

 

1–3 Uttarakhand Forest Department, Western Circle, Haldwani, Uttarakhand 263139, India.

 1  vemalrajpg@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 cfwestern49@gmail.com, 3 ayushuniyalvett@gmail.com

 

 

 

Editor: Bahar S. Baviskar, Society for Wildlife Conservation, Education and Research, Nagpur, India.        Date of publication: 26 September 2021 (online & print)

 

Citation: Govindan, V.P., P.M. Dhakate & A. Uniyal (2021). Intestinal coccidiosis (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) in a Himalayan Griffon Vulture Gyps himalayensis. Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(11): 19663–19664. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5869.13.11.19663-19664

 

Copyright: © Govindan et al. 2021. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

 

Funding: None.

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

 

The Himalayan Griffon Vulture or Himalayan Vulture Gyps himalayensis is an Old World scavenger. It is closely related to the European Griffon Vulture G. fulvus and is found along the Himalaya and the adjoining Tibetan plateau. It is one of the largest, heaviest, and true raptors. Adults have a long and spiky ruff as pale brown with white streaks. They all have a large wingspan, which allows them to soar with little effort. The head is covered down with yellowish colour in adults and whitish in immature vultures. The under-wing coverts are quite pale brown or buff, being almost white in some specimens. The legs are covered with buffy feathers and the feet can vary from greenish-grey to white. The upper side is unstreaked, pale buff with the tail quills, outer greater coverts and wing quills being a contrasting dark brown. The inner-secondaries have paler tips.

Coccidiosis is an old protozoan parasitic disease, prevalent worldwide and has an inhibitory role in the growth of poultry production industries by disease complex, caused by different species of the parasite Eimeria. Coccidia affect both clinically and sub-clinically. The clinical form of the disease manifests through prominent signs of mortality, morbidity, diarrhoea or bloody faeces, and sub-clinical coccidiosis manifests mainly by poor weight gain and reduced efficiency (Williams 1999). The present paper highlights the hemorrhagic intestinal coccidiosis in the Himalayan Griffon and its importance in wildlife conservation.

A carcass of a free-ranging juvenile Himalayan Griffon from the Haldwani forest range division, Nainital, Uttarakhand was brought in for treatment. The fecal sample was placed in a 100 ml beaker and emulsified with 10–15 ml of water, strained, and centrifuged. A drop of sediment was examined under both low and high power objectives, microscopically (Soulsby 1982) for the presence/absence of parasitic Eimeria oocyst.

Microscopic examination of fecal sample from Himalayan Griffon carcass revealed the presence of parasitic Eimeria oocyst and confirmed based on the key points oocysts containing four sporocysts each with two sporozoites (Soulsby 1982; Urquhart et al. 1994).

If the oocysts from fecal samples are higher in number preferably coupled with typical clinical signs like bloody diarrhea, hemorrhages in the concerned birds, then the clinical approach should associate the usage of specific drugs like amprolium @ 3 ml of 9.6 per cent solution or potentiated sulphonamide drugs
 (Jayathangaraj et al. 2008).

Dolnik et al. (2010) reported that the prevalence of infection and intensity depended on the stratum, the gregariousness and the diet of the hosts. Aerial feeders had the lowest prevalence and intensity of infection, besides ground feeders the highest prevalence due to exposure by faeco-oral contamination. Coccidia were very sensitive to direct sunlight and desiccation, when in shady and humid ground would provide the optimal habitat to survive and transmit infectious oocysts.

Coccidiosis is a serious and widespread disease of birds and needs periodical examination and continuous monitoring. Interestingly, the prevalence and presence of Eimeria sp. infection in Himalayan Griffon needs attention as it causes severe enteritis and mortality. However, the life cycle of coccidian parasites in free ranging wild birds and their disease transmission needs to be researched in detail.

 

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References

 

Dolnik, O.V., V.R. Dolnik & F. Bairlein (2010). The effect of host foraging ecology on the prevalence and intensity of coccidian infection in wild passerine birds. Ardea 98:  97–103.

Jayathangaraj, M.G., S. Gomathinayagam & V. Bhakyalakshmi (2008). Incidence of coccidiosis in captive wild birds. Tamil Nadu Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences 4(4): 156.

Soulsby, E.J. (1982). Helminths, Arthropods and Protozoa of Domestic Animals. 7th Edition. ELBS, Bareilly Tindall, London.

Urquhart, G.M., J. Armour, J.L. Duncan, A.M. Dunn & F.W. Jennings (1994). Veterinary Parasitology. Longman Scientic and Technical, England.

Williams, R.B. (1999). A compartmentalised model for the estimation of the cost of coccidiosis to the world’s chicken production industry. International Journal of Parasitology 29: 1209–1229.