Plasmodium ginsburgi Chavatte & Grès & Snounou & Chabaud & Landau 2009, n. sp.
Creators: name: Chavatte, Jean-Marc
name: Grès, Virginie
name: Snounou, Georges
name: Chabaud, Alain
name: Landau, Irène
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Chromista
Miozoa
Eucoccidiida
Plasmodiidae
Plasmodium
Plasmodium ginsburgi

description: Plasmodium ginsburgi Chavatte & Landau, n. sp.
(Fig. 1D)
TYPE MATERIAL. — Holotype: France. Landes, Saint-Julien-en-Born, 44°03’42’’N, 1°13’33’’W, blood smear of A. arvensis number 738U, 25.X.1996 (MNHN 440LV PXIII, 65) (Fig. 3H).
Paratypes: same data as holotype, blood smears of A. arvensis number 738U, 25.X.1996 (MNHN P2- XXV, 1-23).
ETYMOLOGY. — This species is dedicated to Hagai Ginsburg.
DISTRIBUTION. — Known only from the type locality, Saint-Julien-en-Born, Landes, France.
HOST. — Alauda arvensis (type host).
DESCRIPTION
This large species lies in an enlarged ellipsoid RBC where extremities are often narrower and sometimes discoloured. The RBC nucleus is dense and sub-globular and is pushed towards one of the extremities. The young and sub-mature schizonts are irregular in form and are disposed transversally in the middle part of the RBC whose nucleus is tilted. They comprise a blue cytoplasmic area scattered with vacuoles, a rather rough pigment, and a highly granular and abundant diffuse chromatin mass in which nuclei are yet to be differentiated. The older schizonts occupy nearly the whole of the RBC, whose nucleus is consequently found in a notch. The parasite chromatin is still highly granular and covers the whole of the schizont, except for one or two central vacuolated areas, and progressively condenses to form nuclei. The rough pigment is assembled and is often associated with a white vacuole. Fully mature schizonts could not be observed, but we evaluate the number of nuclei to exceed 30.
Gametocytes are ellipsoid and contain numerous little vacuoles.
DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS
Plasmodium ginsburgi n. sp. can be distinguished from P. bioccai by its shape and that of the RBC which is ellipsoid and elongated in the former and rounded in the latter. These species also differ by their pigment, which is gathered and rough in the former and finer and more dispersed in the latter. Schizont maturation and nucleus formation differ between the two species: the chromatin remains diffuse until the late stages in P. ginsburgi n. sp. in contrast to the early formation of individual nuclei in P. bioccai. Finally, the number of nuclei exceeds 30 in P. ginsburgi n. sp. but is around 24 to 30 in P. bioccai.
The ellipsoid elongate P. ginsburgi n. sp. with a high number of nuclei is comparable to Plasmodium maior Raffaele, 1930, a parasite of Passer hispaniolensis and P. domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758). The schizonts illustrated by Raffaele (1930) are comparable to those observed here: the ellipsoid schizonts are large even in young forms, they fill the RBC whose globular nucleus is pushed to one of the extremities. However, the two species differ by the chromatin that remain diffuse throughout a large portion of P. ginsburgi n. sp. maturation whereas it is gathered up in a few large massed in P. maior, and by the rough pigment amassed around a vacuole that contrasts to the pigment distributed in several masses in P. bioccai. Raffaele had not described any mature forms, but in the re-description (Landau et al. 2003), it was noted that 20 to 24 merozoites are formed, a number inferior to that estimated for P. ginsburgi n. sp.
description: Published as part of Chavatte, Jean-Marc, Grès, Virginie, Snounou, Georges, Chabaud, Alain & Landau, Irène, 2009, Plasmodium (Apicomplexa) of the skylark (Alauda arvensis), pp. 369-383 in Zoosystema 31 (2) on page 374, DOI: 10.5252/z2009n2a8, http://zenodo.org/record/5391006