Plasmodium pessoai

Plasmodium pessoai is a parasite of the genus Plasmodium.

Like all Plasmodium species P. pessoai has both vertebrate and insect hosts. The vertebrate hosts for this parasite are reptiles.

Description
The parasite was first described by Ayala et al in 1978. The species is named after Dr Samuel B Pessoa - a parasitologist at the Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, Brazil.

Morphologically this species appears to be related to Plasmodium aurulentum.

Geographical occurrence
This species is found in Costa Rica, Central America.

Clinical features and host pathology
This species is one of the three known to infect snakes: the other two species infecting snames are Plasmodium wenyoni and Plasmodium tomodoni.

This species infects the rat snake (Spilotes pullatus) and the bush master (Lachesis muta).

The gametocytes are small and sausage shaped (10.4 x 4.6 micrometres)

Immature schizonts often contain a digestive vacuole.

Mature schizonts are spherical or bouquet-shaped and produce 22 - 32 merozoites. They may posses an intensely staining magenta or rose-coloured substance in the matrix of the surrounding vacuole.