Plasmodium pessoai sp. n. from two Costa Rican snakes.
A unique malaria parasite species was found in 1/1 Spilotes pullatus (Colubridae) and 1/70 Lachesis muta (Crotalidae) from the moist Atlantic lowland forests of eastern Costa Rica. It is distinguished by small, sausage-shaped gametocytes (x 10.4 by 4.6 mu), growing schizonts that often contain a noticeable digestive vacuole with the contents partially visible, and striking spherical or bouquet-shaped segmenters whose precise merozoite numbers are difficult to discern (about 22-32) because of an intensely staining magenta or rose-colored substance in the matrix of the surrounding vacuole.
D000818:Animals; D003364:Costa Rica; D010961:Plasmodium / Q000145:classification* / Q000166:cytology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012911:Snakes / Q000469:parasitology*