Octomitus

Seabolt, Matthew H., Alderisio, Kerri A., Xiao, Lihua & Roellig, Dawn M., 2021, Prevalence and molecular characterization of novel species of the Diplomonad genus Octomitus (Diplomonadida: Giardiinae) from wildlife in a New York watershed, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 14, pp. 267-272 : 268

3.1. Prevalence of Octomitus in wildlife

We detected Octomitus genotypes in 74 (24.3%) out of the 304 wildlife samples tested by nested PCR ( Table 1). All positive samples originated from the rodent families Cricetidae (containing deer mice and voles; 45/101), Scuiridae (squirrels; 4/46), Muridae (murine rodents; 13/33), or from the Virginia opossum, the sole marsupial species in North America (11/19, 57.9%). Octomitus was not detected in specimens from any other sampled vertebrate host taxa; however the sample size of insectivores, ruminants, lagomorphs, birds, and amphibians is too small (n = 1–9) to draw accurate estimates of Octomitus infection, if they are present in these hosts.