Abstract

Haematophagous mites were collected from the vent region and plumage of chickens in six hobby flocks of ornamental breeds in Sweden, one of which included turkeys. Soiled vent skin and feathers, dermatitis, hyperkeratosis, skin necroses and ulcers were observed in 12 necropsied birds from two of the flocks. The mites were identified as the northern fowl mite Ornithonyssus sylviarum (Mesostigmata: Macronyssidae). This was supported by sequence analysis of a 642-bp region in the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene (COI) in mites collected from five flocks, which showed 97-99% sequence similarity to O.sylviarum by blast analysis. Pairwise sequence comparisons revealed nucleotide variations in the range of 0-2.8%, whereas amino acid sequences were highly conserved. This paper represents one of very few records of O.sylviarum in European poultry, and is the first to report COI sequence data for O.sylviarum from poultry in Europe.

Keywords

Acari; Macronyssidae; Mesostigmata; Ornithonyssus sylviarum; chicken; COI gene; northern fowl mite

Published in

Medical and Veterinary Entomology
2014, Volume: 28, number: 4, pages: 443-446
Publisher: WILEY-BLACKWELL

SLU Authors

• Höglund, Johan

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Engström, Annie

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Medical Bioscience


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mve.12053

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/65356