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Gediminas Valkinas^1,3,5, Ravinder N. M. Sehgal^2,3, Tatjana A. Iezhova¹ and Thomas B. Smith^3,4

¹ Institute of Ecology, Vilnius University, Akademijos 2, Vilnius 21, LT-08412, Lithuania;
² Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, California, 94132, USA;
³ Center for Tropical Research, Institute of the Environment, University of California, Los Angeles, 1365 Hershey Hall, P.O. Box 95 1496, Los Angeles, California 90095-1496, USA;
⁴ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1606, USA
⁵ Corresponding author (email: gedvalk{at}ekoi.lt)

ABSTRACT:   Birds from three National Parks (Bwindi Impenetrable, Kibale, and Queen Elizabeth) in western Uganda were surveyed during the dry season in July 2003 and investigated for hematozoa by microscopic examination of stained blood films. Of 307 birds examined, representing 68 species of 15 families and four orders, 61.9% were found to be infected with blood parasites. Species of Haemoproteus (15.3% prevalence), Plasmodium (20.5%), Leucocytozoon (40.1%), Trypanosoma (11.4%), Hepatozoon (2.6%), Atoxoplasma (0.3%), and microfilariae (3.9%) were recorded. Except for Haemoproteus spp. infections, the overall prevalence of hematozoa belonging to all genera was significantly higher in this study than was previously reported in Uganda. Thirty-six species of birds were examined for blood parasites for the first time and 112 new host-parasite associations were identified. Eighty-one were at the generic and 31 at the specific level of the hematozoa. Hepatozoon and Atoxoplasma spp. were detected for the first time in Uganda.
  Key words:  Atoxoplasma, avian hematozoa, Haemoproteus, Hepatozoon, Leucocytozoon, microfilariae, Plasmodium, Trypanosoma, Uganda.