Potential Pathogens Reported in Species of the Family Viverridae and Their Implications for Human and Animal Health

Wicker, L. V.; Canfield, P. J.; Higgins, D. P.

Both external and internal arthropods from seven genera, in four families -Sarcoptidae (mites), Ixodidae (ticks), Trichodectidae (chewing lice) and Porocephalidae (pentostomes)were reported for viverrids (Table 7) . The sarcoptid mite, Notoedres cati, a common parasite of domestic and wild felids, was reported for urban-dwelling Masked palm civet in Japan (Ninomiya et al., 2003) . Many species of ixodid tick, most of which are themselves carriers of zoonotic pathogens, were also reported, including Amblyomma testudinarium (Grassman et al., 2004) ; Ixodes ovatus (Tanskul et al., 1983; Robbins et al., 1997) ; a number of Haemaphysalis spp. (Hoogstraal and Trapido, 1966; Hoogstraal, 1971; Tanskul et al., 1983; Tolosa and Regassa, 2007; Mediannikov et al., 2012) ; Rhipicephalus spp. (Grassman et al., 2004; Tolosa and Regassa, 2007) ; Dermacentor tawianensis (Hoogstraal et al., 1986) and D. auratus (Hoogstraal and Wassef, 1985) . The chewing louse, Felicola bengalensis was collected from a wild civet (Changbunjong et al., 2011) , and one internal arthropod parasite, the pentostome Armillifer moniliformis, was reported for a range of civet species (Stabler and Self, 1967; Krishnasamy et al., 1981) . Identification of arthropods was based on morphology of varying life cycle stages of the organisms collected from viverrids.