pathogens in mastitis (e.g. S. aureus, S. agalactiae, S. uberis), or potentially dangerous for human health (e.g. E. coli and related species, Salmonella, S. aureus and Bacillus spp). Streptococcus spp. was identified at the species level, even in the cases, like the one of S. uberis and S. parauberis, where the molecular identification on the basis of the 16S rRNA gene required PCRs with species-specific primers. Moreover, the ORMA-based LDR technique represents a significant improvement of the existing detection methods for Mycoplasma spp. strains (38) , known to be contagious causes of intramammary infection in herds, overcoming the long and laborious standard-detection methods based on microbiological procedures (36) . These results confirmed the ability of this tool to determine discriminating positions in complex datasets.