Abdominal dioctophymosis in a domestic cat from the Peruvian rainforest confirmed morphologically and molecularly

A case of abdominal dioctophymosis in a domestic cat was found in San Juan Bautista district, the Peruvian rainforest, in the Loreto department of Peru. The pet went to a veterinary clinic for a routine ovariohysterectomy during which a large nematode was found in the abdominal cavity. The nematode was morphologically identified as an adult female of Dioctophyme sp. A few morphological parameters, such as the vagina distance from the anterior part and the egg size, were different than D. renale. Partial sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (cox1) and the small subunit 18S ribosomal RNA genes were compared with the references from public sequence database and showed a genetic identifies of 89.25% and 99.65% with D. renale, respectively. This is the first mitochondrial molecular analysis of a Dioctophyme specimen from South America and the results showed up to 12.5% nucleotide sequence variation in cox 1 gene of D. renale.