Raillietiella mottae ( Pentastomida : Raillietiellidae ) infecting Ameiva ameiva ( Squamata : Teiidae ) in Araripe Plateau , Northeast Brazil

We investigated the infection by pulmonary parasites in the lizard Ameiva ameiva (Teiidae) inhabiting the Environmental Protection Area of Araripe (APA-Araripe). A total of 45 specimens were collected in three areas between the cities of Várzea Alegre and Barbalha. A Pentastomid species (Raillietiella mottae) was parasitizing (nine specimens) a male of A. ameiva with a prevalence of 2.22% considering all lizards collected in the region and prevalence of 50% considering only rainforest environment. The Pentastomids infection rates shown in this study are similar to data found for infections of other insectivorous lizards. Raillietiella mottae is considered a generalist parasite, which uses insects as intermediate hosts. The results of this study represent the first record of a Pentastomid infecting this species of lizard in South America.


Introduction
Parasites are important regulators of animal populations, affecting fertility, dietary habits, and other aspects of the natural history of their hosts (Marcogliese, 2004) Furthermore, the relationship between parasite and host is an important parameter for the study of biological communities (Rocha et al., 2000), operating even in the evolution of their hosts (Phillips et al., 2010).
Pentastomids are parasites of the respiratory tract of vertebrates, especially reptiles (Riley, 1986), with 144 species currently described (Christoffersen and Assis, 2013).The understanding of the biology of these parasites is important to assimilate the mechanisms of infection and identify conservation strategies of the host ex situ (Klingenberg, 1993;Marcogliese, 2004), and to understand how the parasites are involved in regulating the population of their hosts.
Ameiva ameiva (Linnaeus, 1758) it is a medium-sized lizard in relation to other terrestrial Neotropical lizards (Vitt and Colli, 1994), diurnal, inhabiting preferably open areas, ecotones and degraded environments (Vitt and Colli, 1994;Vitt, 1995;Ribeiro et al., 2012b).In all pulmonary parasitology work carried out with lizards, the gekkota clade is the species with the highest rates of pentastomid infection (Almeida et al., 2008a(Almeida et al., , b, c, 2009;;Brito et al., 2014;Ribeiro et al., 2012a;Sousa et al., 2014).Thus, investigative studies with other families of lizards, such as Teiidae, offer the opportunity to identify patterns of pulmonary infection involving different groups of lizards.In the present study, we investigated the pentastomid infection in lizard A. ameiva in an area where Pentastomids have already been registered (Ribeiro et al., 2012a).
A total of 90 groups of pitfall traps were installed (30 in each environment), each consisting of four buckets of 30 liters (totaling 360 buckets) buried in the ground to the edge, and interconnected by a fence guide, in an array of "Y" with a bucket at the center, and three buckets at each end fence guide.Active collections were also made in the search for lizards, using an air gun (4 mm caliber) and slingshot.Each environment was individually studied for 30 days -15 days in the dry season and 15 days in the rainy season -totaling 90 days sampling with traps and active searches.
The lizards were sacrificed with Lidocaine injection, and then were weighed with a precision (0.01) balance (SHIMADZU-BL3200H), and snout-vent length (SVL) was measured (accuracy 0.01 mm) and fixed in 10% formalin; and after 48 hours, they were washed in flowing water and preserved in 70% alcohol.The organs of the lizards were analyzed, and sexes were identified from the analysis of their gonads.Specimens are deposited in the Herpetological Collection of the Universidade Federal da Paraíba (CHUFPB), and the Universidade Regional do Cariri (CH-URCA).
The respiratory tracts of lizards were removed for analysis of parasites.The parasites were preserved in 70% alcohol.To identify pentastomids, the specimens were mounted on slides in permanent Hoyer, and then analyzed under a light microscope.The parasitological terms follow Bush et al. (1997).Pentastomids were identified based on the dimensions of hooks and copulatory spicules of males (Almeida et al., 2008a;Ali et al., 1985).
The Teiidae family has only two records of the species Raillietiella aff.furcocerca infecting C. abaetensis and C. ocellifer with intensity of infection comparatively low (1) and (4.5), respectively (Dias et al., 2005).In the study by Brito et al. (2014), A. ameiva was sampled in three different populations of Caatinga vegetation, and there was no registered pentastomid infection for this species, which may indicate the presence of Pentastomida in Teiidae lizards, occur accidentally or occasionally without causing apparent damage to the tissues of the infected organ.