''Mycobacterium pinnipedii'' is a member of the ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' complex which primarily infects seals. It is a slowly growing ''

Mycobacterium ''Mycobacterium'' is a genus of over 190 species in the phylum Actinomycetota, assigned its own family, Mycobacteriaceae. This genus includes pathogens known to cause serious diseases in mammals, including tuberculosis (''Mycobacterium tuberculo ...

''. The species is named after the

pinniped Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant families Odobenidae (whose onl ...

s, the organisms from which ''M. pinnipedii'' was first isolated. In 2014, a genetic study showed that a

Peruvian Peruvians (''/peruanas'') are the citizens of Peru. What is now Peru has been inhabited for several millennia by cultures such as the Caral before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Peruvian population decreased from an estimated 5–9 ...

human skeleton dating to 1000 CE had been infected with a form of tuberculosis most closely related to ''M. pinnipedii'', suggesting that seals had served as a vector for transmission of tuberculosis from the Old World to the New.

References

External links

* Acid-fast bacilli pinnipedii Bacteria described in 2003 Pinniped diseases {{Mycobacterium-stub