''Plasmodium giganteum'' is a parasite of the genus ''
Plasmodium
''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a ver ...
'' subgenus ''
Sauramoeba
''Sauramoeba'' is a subgenus of the genus ''Plasmodium'', all of which are parasitic eukaryotes. The subgenus was created in 1966 by Garnham. Species in this subgenus infect reptiles.
Description
The original criterion for inclusion in this ...
''. As in all ''Plasmodium'' species, ''P. giganteum'' has both
vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...
and
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
hosts. The vertebrate hosts for this parasite are
reptiles.
Taxonomy
The parasite was first described by Theiler in 1930.
Description
''P. giganteum'' blood-stage parasites are described as being 2 to 6 times as large as the host cell nucleus. The gametocytes are round and elongated.
Distribution
''P. giganteum'' has only been described in
Gbanga
Gbanga is a geolocation-based social gaming platform for mobile phones developed by Zurich-based startup, Millform AG. The platform runs on real-time locative media, developed in-house, which means that the gaming environment changes relative t ...
,
Liberia.
[
]
Hosts
''P. giganteum'' infects the rainbow lizard (''Agama agama
The common agama, red-headed rock agama or rainbow agama (''Agama agama'') is a species of lizard from the family Agamidae found in most of sub-Saharan Africa. To clear up historical confusion based on Linnaeus and other authors, Wagner, et al. ( ...
''), as well as '' Agama mossambica'' and '' Agama cyanogaster''.[
]
References
Further reading
giganteum
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