PATHOGENS IN QUAILS OF THE TRANS-PECOS ECOREGION OF TEXAS.

Texas quail populations have declined over the past few decades. While habitat loss has been identified as the primary cause, it has been speculated that pathogens may also play a role in this decline. To help address this, we collected scaled quail, Callipepla squamata, Gambel's quail, Callipepla gambelii, and Montezuma quail, Cyrtonyx montezumae, from across the Trans-Pecos ecoregion of Texas via hunter-harvest. Quail samples were then necropsied to document pathogens not previously recorded in the host species. Pathogens were submitted to the Texas A&M University Veterinary Medicine Diagnostic Lab (TVMDL), where parasite identification and histopathological analyses were conducted. From this, we identified several parasites that had never been documented in the quails of the Trans-Pecos ecoregion of Texas. This study was the first to document Mycobacterium sp. and Sarcocystis sp. in scaled quail, Subulura sp. and Physaloptera sp. in Montezuma quail, and Oxyspirura petrowi and Aulonocephalus pennula in a Texas Gambel's quail.

First Documentation of Nematode Dispharynx sp. in Scaled Quail.

Quail populations in the United States have been declining for several decades, and the role that parasites may be playing in this decline is not well understood. The goal of this study was to document novel parasites that inhabited the scaled quail, Callipepla squamata, of the Trans-Pecos ecoregion of Texas. To do this, quail were collected by hunter-harvest, night-netting, and funnel-trapping and were necropsied in the laboratory to determine the parasites they hosted. After analyzing 386 birds, we identified Dispharynx sp. in one of the samples. This specimen is the first to be officially documented in scaled quail.