From February 1992 to March 1997, 245 European mouflon (Ovis orientalis musimon) from Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park (southern Spain) were surveyed for oestrid larvae in order to estimate prevalence and mean intensity of parasitism by Oestrus ovis. Over 46 percent of the animals surveyed were infected, with a mean intensity of 9.6 larvae/host parasitized. No significant differences in prevalence rates between host sexes were observed, but older mouflons were infected with more larvae than younger ones.Peer Reviewe

De Simone, A.

Granados, José E.

Moreno Ferrero, Vicente

Moreno, Pedro A.

Pérez, Jesús M.

Ruiz-Martínez, Isidoro

Soriguer, Ramón C.

Digital.CSIC

78Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 35(1), 1999, pp. 78–81q Wildlife Disease Association 1999Oestrid myiasis in European Mouflon from SpainVirginia Moreno,1 Jesus M. Pe´rez,1,5 Pedro A. Moreno,1 Jose´ E. Granados,1 Isidoro Ruiz-Martinez,1,4 RamonC. Soriguer,2 and Miguel A. de Simon,3 1 Departamento de Biologı´a Animal, Vegetal y Ecologı´a. Universidadde Jae´n. Paraje Las Lagunillas, S.N. E-23071, Jae´n, Spain; 2 Estacio´n Biolo´gica de Don˜ana (CSIC). Av. Marı´aLuisa, S.N. E-41013, Sevilla, Spain; 3 Parque Natural de las Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas. C/ Martı´nezFalero, 11, E-23470, Cazorla, Jae´n, Spain; 4 We dedicate this work to our friend and colleague Dr. Ruiz-Martı´nez,who died last July in a tragic mountain accident; 5 Corresponding author (e-mail: jperez@ujaen.es).ABSTRACT: From February 1992 to March1997, 245 European mouflon (Ovis orientalismusimon) from Sierras de Cazorla, Segura yLas Villas Natural Park (southern Spain) weresurveyed for oestrid larvae in order to estimateprevalence and mean intensity of parasitism byOestrus ovis. Over 46 percent of the animalssurveyed were infected, with a mean intensityof 9.6 larvae/host parasitized. No significant dif-ferences in prevalence rates between host sexeswere observed, but older mouflons were in-fected with more larvae than younger ones.Key words: European mouflon, nasal my-iasis, Oestrus ovis, Ovis orientalis musimon,sheep bot fly, survey.The sheep bot fly, Oestrus ovis, a cos-mopolitan species with a Palaearctic ori-gin, is mainly a parasite of domestic sheepand goats (Zumpt, 1965; Haeselbarth etal., 1966; Jagannath et al., 1989b). This flyalso has been reported from wild sheepand goats including the Siberian ibex(Capra ibex sibirica), argali (Ovis ammon)(Grunin, 1957; Wetzel and Bauristhene,1970) and bighorn sheep (O. canadensis)(Capelle, 1966; Bunch and Webb, 1979;Allen and Bunch, 1982). Due to similarityto other Oestrus spp., O. ovis has not beenconfirmed from African antelopes. How-ever, Howard (1980) reported that it mayoccur in Nubian ibex (C. ibex nubiana)and Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia). Acase of nasal myiasis by O. ovis in a do-mestic dog from the Canary Islands(Spain) has been recently reported by Lu-cientes et al. (1997), and O. ovis larvaefairly frequently have been identified ascausing human ophthalmomyiasis (Nabeeland Saliba, 1978; Apt et al., 1980).This parasitism may be a predisposingfactor for caprine pleuropneumonia (Ja-gannath et al., 1989a). In bighorn sheep,chronic sinusitis is considered as a majormortality factor, especially in captive con-ditions. Presumably, chronic sinusitis isdue to bacterial infection induced by thebot fly parasitism (Bunch and Webb, 1979;Allen and Bunch, 1982).The impact of O. ovis in livestock is wellknown (e.g., Cobbett and Mitchell, 1941;Unsworth, 1949; Horak, 1977; Horak andButt, 1977; Pangui et al., 1988; Pandey,1989; Ruiz et al., 1992), and the biology,ecology, and bionomics of this oestrid havebeen investigated (see Rogers and Knapp,1973; Breev et al., 1980; Jagannath et al.,1989b; Bart and Minar, 1992). Climate in-fluences life-cycle duration and number ofgenerations per year, and is related to ahigh mortality rate (up to 99%) in larvalstages. Nevertheless, data on occurrenceof this parasite on wild hosts are scarce.The main goal of our study was to analyzebasic epidemiological parameters influenc-ing oestrosis affecting the European mou-flon (Ovis orientalis), an exotic ungulatespecies which was released in southernSpain during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Pres-ently mouflon are sympatric with red andfallow deer (Cervus elaphus and Damadama) and Spanish ibex (Capra pyrenaica)in this mountain range.From February 1992 to March 1997,245 European mouflon were surveyed foroestrid larvae. Samples came from the Si-erras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Nat-ural Park, southern Spain (388309N,28459E). Sampling was limited to the offi-cial hunting season (October to March).The head and neck were removed fromeach carcass and frozen in plastic bags(24C, 12 to 48 hr after death) until theywere examined. Age of mouflon was as-sessed by counting horn rings and teethSHORT COMMUNICATIONS 79TABLE1.Parasitismin245EuropeanmouflonbyOestrusovis,accordingtosexandageclassescollectedFebruary1992toMarch1997insouthernSpain.AgeStatistic#2-yr-oldMalesFemales3-to5-yr-oldMalesFemales6-to9-yr-oldMalesFemales$10-yr-oldMalesFemalesNumberexaminedNumberinfected(%)Meanintensity(6SD)Rangeofintensity38 14 376.766.41–2263 20 327.267.81–3218 9 5011.2610.61–3746 23 506.864.21–1713 9 6929.0644.21–14253 30 576.068.71–440 — — — —14 9 6417.6631.22–105replacement (Pfeffer, 1967). Necropsieswere conducted following the method de-scribed by Ruiz et al. (1993) and Pe´rez etal. (1996), and oestrid larvae were identi-fied according to Grunin (1957), Zumpt(1965) and Wetzel and Bauristhene(1970). Prevalence and mean intensity ofoestrosis were calculated according toMargolis et al. (1982) and Bush et al.(1997). Differences in intensities and prev-alences between different host sex and ageclasses were tested by means of ANOVAor Mann-Whitney analyses and chi-squared, respectively, (Sokal and Rohlf,1995), using the BMDP program (Dixon,1990). Type material, consisting of 5 L2and 5 L3 larvae, was deposited at the Mu-seo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC:Madrid, Spain).A total of 1,100 bots were removed from114 mouflon, for a prevalence of 47%. Alllarvae were O. ovis. Prevalence was similarin males (46%) and females (47%) (Table1). Prevalence tended to increase withhost age (Table 1), but these differenceswere not significant (x2 5 16.985; df 5 10;P 5 0.0747). The mean (6SD) intensitywas 9.6 6 17.9 larvae/host parasitized(range 5 1–142), with 105 and 142 larvaefrom an 11-yr-old female and an 8-yr-oldmale, respectively. If these extreme valuesare deleted, no significant differences wereobserved in the intensity of oestrid larvaeacross sexes (Mann-Whitney’s U 5 51.61;P 5 0.9397). The mode in the parasitizedhosts was 1 (n 5 16). However, intensityof parasitism in older mouflons was higherrelative to younger ones (Levene’s F 54.47; df 5 10; P , 0.0001). The distribu-tion of larvae within hosts followed a neg-ative binomial distribution (K 5 0.251; x¯5 2.463; variance 5 16.372; Diggle, 1983).The prevalence observed in this studyare close to values given by other authorsfor domestic sheep and goats parasitizedby O. ovis. Prevalence observed in mou-flon was less than levels in sheep in south-ern Spain and Morroco (Ruiz et al., 1992),and less than those seen in other wild un-gulate species such as Spanish ibex, red80 JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES, VOL. 35, NO. 1, JANUARY 1999deer and fallow deer, from the same studyarea (Ruiz et al., 1993; Pe´rez et al., 1996).The mean intensity of O. ovis also waswithin the range of values obtained in oth-er studies on the occurrence of larvae ofthis species in domestic animals. Increasednumbers of larvae with host age has beenreported previously in wild ungulates(Ruiz et al., 1993; Pe´rez et al., 1996) andthis may be explained by the availability ofgreater space provided by the nasopharyn-geal areas and the frontal and horn sinusesof older animals. More data acquired dur-ing different months are needed to deter-mine the seasonal dynamics of oestrosis inmouflon as well as in the domestic sheepwhich are sympatric.Price (1980) analyzed the host-specifityof different kinds of parasites, includingOld World oestrids, and noted that 49% ofoestrid species are specific to a single hostspecies. This author suggested that speci-ficity in the Oestridae results partially fromlimitation in the number of available hostsrather than strong selection pressures forspecialization on one or a few hosts. Therecord of P. picta, normally a parasite ofred deer, parasitizing mouflon in Hungary(Sugar, 1974) supports the idea that oes-trid flies can be opportunists. The samehappens with O. ovis when it accidentallyparasitizes the dog or human.We thank E. Gonza´lez-Capitel, Direc-tor-Conservator of the Sierras de Cazorla,Segura y Las Villas Natural Park, for co-ordination in obtaining samples. We alsoare indebted to J. Navarro, M. C. Pe´rezand M. L. Bueno for their help in trans-porting samples and performing necrop-sies.LITERATURE CITEDALLEN, S. D., AND T. D. BUNCH. 1982. Cranial le-sions attributable to chronic sinusitis in bighornsheep. Journal of the American Veterinary Med-ical Association 181: 1418–1419.APT, W., C. SALINAS, AND F. GUERRERO. 1980. My-iasis ocular externa por larvas de Oestrus ovis.Revista Me´dica de Chile 108: 921–923.BART, A. G., AND J. MINAR. 1992. Probability de-scription of regulation on the level of populationand individual in the host-parasite system usingOestrus ovis (Diptera: Oestridae) as an example.Folia Parasitologica 39: 75–83.BREEV, K. A., R. G. ZAGRETDINOV, AND J. MINAR.1980. Influence of constant and variable temper-atures on pupal development of the sheep bot fly(Oestrus ovis L.). Folia Parasitologica 27: 359–365.BUNCH, T. D., AND P. WEBB. 1979. Desert bighornchronic sinusitis in Arizona. Desert BighornCouncil Transactions 1979: 25–32.BUSH, A. O., K. D. LAFFERTY, J. M. LOTZ, AND A.W. SHOSTAK. 1997. Parasitology meets ecologyon its own terms: Margolis et al. revisited. TheJournal of Parasitology 83: 575–583.CAPELLE, K. J. 1966. The occurrence of Oestrus ovisL. (Diptera: Oestridae) in the bighorn sheepfrom Wyoming and Montana. The Journal ofParasitology 52: 618–621.COBBETT, N. G., AND W. C. MITCHELL. 1941. Fur-ther observations on the life-cycle and incidenceof the sheep bot, Oestrus ovis, in New Mexicoand Texas. American Journal of Veterinary Re-search 1/2: 358–360.DIGGLE, P. J. 1983. Statistical analysis of spatial pointpatterns. Academic Press, London, UK, 148 pp.DIXON, W. J. (ED.). 1990. BMDP statistical softwaremanual. University of California Press, Berkeley,California, 1385 pp.GRUNIN, K. Y. 1957. Nasal bot flies (Oestridae). Fau-na of the U.S.S.R. Dipterous insects 19: 1–147.[in Russian.]HAESELBARTH, E., J. SEGERMAN, AND F. ZUMPT.1966. The arthropod parasites of vertebrates inAfrica south of the Sahara (Ethiopian region).Vol. III (Insecta Excl. Phthiraptera). The SouthAfrican Institute for Medical Research, Johan-nesburg, South Africa, 283 pp.HORAK, I. G. 1977. Parasites of domestic and wildanimals in South Africa. I. Oestrus ovis in sheep.Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research44: 55–64., AND M. J. BUTT. 1977. Parasites of domesticand wild animals in South Africa. II. Oestrus ovisin goats. Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Re-search 44: 65–68.HOWARD, G. W. 1980. Second stage larvae of nasalbotflies (Oestridae) from African antelopes. Sys-tematic Entomology 5: 167–177.JAGANNATH, M. S., N. COZAB, AND S. K. VIJAYASAR-ATHI. 1989a. Histopathological changes in thenasal passages of sheep and goats infested withOestrus ovis (Diptera: Oestridae). Indian Journalof Animal Sciences 59: 87–91., , S. A. RAHMAN, AND T. G. HONNAP-PA. 1989b. Studies on the biology of Oestrus ovisLinnaeus, 1761 (Diptera: Oestridae). Indian Vet-erinary Journal 66: 677–679.LUCIENTES, J., M. FERRER, M. J. ANDRES, M. A.PERIBAN˜EZ, M. J. GRACIA, AND J. A. 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Oestrid myiasis in European Mouflon from Spain

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