First report of an intraerythrocytic small piroplasm in wild Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus)

A wild in jured Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) was taken from the Sierra Morena population. During the health check small intraerythrocytic piroplasms, morphologically indistinguishable from other feline piroplasms, were observed in Wright-Giemsa-stained blood filius. Amplification by polymerase chain reaction of a portion of the 18 nuclear small subunit (NSS) rRNA gone and sequencing revealed similarity of the unknown organism with sequences obtained from Pallas's cat from Mongolia and from a domestic cat in Spain. In a retrospective (1993-2003) study of 50 Iberian lynx tissue samples, no amplifications of the 18S NSS rRNA gene of the organism were obtained. This is the first report of a naturally occurring erythroparasitemia in the Iberian lynx and the first documented case of naturally occurring piroplasm infection in a free-ranging felid from Europe.