A redescription of Haemogregarina damiettae Ramadan et al. 1996 naturally infecting the Acanthodactylus boskianus from Egypt, with new merognic data

Haemogregarina damiettae was previously described form Acanthodactylus boskianus in Egypt, and the description was base only on the blood stages with no data on the tissue stages. In the present study, both blood and tissue stages were encountered. The prevalence of infection was found to be 60 % (30/50). The blood stages were found to be confined to the erythrocytes and none in the leucocytes. The erythrocytic stages could be differentiated into small and large forms. The small form, trophozoite, measured 10 x 3 mu m, while the large form, mature gamontocyte, measured 18 x 5 mu m. The cytoplasm of the mature gamontocyte was finely granular and faintly stained with Giemsa, while the nucleus was relatively large and occupied about one third of the body length and was formed of a network of chromatin filaments. Infected erythrocytes were hypertrophied and their nuclei either longitudinally stretched or split into two fragments. The tissue stages were observed in the lungs and hearts of the infected lizards. The merogonic stages were evident as multinucleated ovoid to subspherical bodies enclosed by parasitophorous vacuoles. Mature meronts measured 16 x 12 mu m and estimated to produce 15-25 merozoites.