Prevalence of Endo, Ecto and Haemoparasites Of Agama Lizards (<i>Agama agama</i>) in Maiduguri, Borno State

Abstract

One hundred agama lizards (Agama agama) were investigated for the presence of ecto, endo and haemoparasites in Maiduguri using standard parasitological techniques. Forty four (44) of the lizards were males while the remaining fifty six (56) were females.80 were adults, while 20 were juveniles. The obtained results revealed that all the lizards were positive for one parasite or the other. Endoparasites (100%) were the most abundant as they were found in all the one hundred lizards examined. However only twenty (20) of the males were infected with haemoparasites constituting 55.6% of the haemoparasitic infection, while sixteen (16) of the females were infected with haemoparasites constituting 44.4%.No statistical significant variation in infection was encountered between the sexes (P<0.05).Similarly none of the investigated lizards was positive for ectoparasite. The distribution of the parasites based on the age of the lizards examined shows that the adults were more infected (P<0.05) with 80(80%) and 31(86.1%) infection rates for endoparasites \and haemoparasites respectively, than the juveniles. Two (2) species of endoparasites consisting of Trichuris spp (70%) and Ascaris spp (30%) were encountered during the study, while haemoparasitic species consisted of Plasmodium (47.2%), Haemoproteus spp (30.6%) and Leucocytozoon spp (22.2%).The findings may be of epidemiological significance in the study area in view of the role of lizards as reservoirs of the identified parasites. Similarly further investigation in the study area using advance techniques such as serology and molecular techniques is needed to ascertain the status of lizards as carriers/reservoirs of diseases such as toxoplasmosis and pentastomosis which are very important in reptiles.

Keywords: Agama lizards, Prevalence, Maiduguri, infection rate, Parasites, Examination