EFFECT OF HAEMOSPORIDIAN PARASITES ON SOME HAEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF EPOMOPHORUS GAMBIANUS IN ZARIA, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Bats are viviparous and belong to the order Chiroptera; the second largest mammalian order with 1232 species (Altringham, 1996; Schnipper et al., 2008). Bats are nocturnal mammals that are important for the maintenance of the ecosystem (Hill and Smith, 1984). They are the only flying mammals and are found everywhere except in the Antarctica and Arctic regions (Hill and Smith, 1984) and perhaps are the most abundant, diverse and geographically dispersed vertebrates (Schnipper et al., 2008). Chiroptera, more than any other mammalian order, provides an opportunity to examine physiological systems operating under diverse conditions. 

Assessment of environmental stresses, rapid food–passage time, and oxygen–consumption data address the great capacity for change in blood morphology and blood chemistry of bats (Riedesel, 1977). The blood profile is affected by various factors such as age, gender and reproductive state, by endogenic rhythms of various metabolites as well as by external factors such as season, time of the day, food availability and genetic quality (Westhuyzen, 1978; Minematsu et al., 1995). Bats are unique in their energy requirements and exhibit high weight-specific basal metabolic rates, where they overcome problems of flight and high weight-specific metabolism by presenting elevated blood oxygen transport properties, that is, high red blood cell counts, haematocrits and haemoglobin concentrations (Riedesel, 1977). The study was designed to evaluate some haematological parameters in haemosporidian parasite-infected and non-infected Epomophorus gambianus. One hundred and ten bats (64 from Area C and 46 from NAPRI-Shika) were captured using mist nets and identified as E. gambianus from November 2016 to February 2017 in Zaria, Nigeria. The haemosporidian parasites identified were Plasmodium voltaicum and Hepatocystis sp. Routine haematological methods involving the use of haematocytometer, microhaematocrit, centrifuge and haemanometer for measuring haemoglobin (HGB), red blood cell count (RBC), white blood cell count (WBC), Leucocytes and pack cell volume (PCV) in accordance to the procedure of Sahli (1962) and  Schalm et al. (1975) were used. The variation of haematological parameter across the sites was not statistically significant at P