Isospora scinci (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) from Five-Lined Skinks, Plestiodon fasciatus (Sauria: Scincidae): Additional Records from Arkansas and First Report from Oklahoma.

A moderate amount of information is available on coccidian parasites (Apicomplexa) of snakes of Oklahoma (McAllister et al. 1995, 2011, 2013), and, although another reptile from the state, the ground skink (Scincella lateralis) has been thoroughly surveyed (McAllister et al. 1994, 2014), nothing, to our knowledge, has been published on coccidia of any lizard in Oklahoma. Yet, Oklahoma supports 19 species and subspecies of lizards in its diverse habitats (Sievert and Sievert 2011). Here we report, for the first time, a species of coccidian from the five-lined skink, Plestiodon fasciatus (L.) from Oklahoma and add information on this coccidian from additional isolates obtained from P. fasciatus from Arkansas. Between February 2010 and August 2014, 37 juvenile and adult (mean ± 1SD snout-vent length [SVL] = 57.6 ± 10.5, range 40-74 mm) P. fasciatus were collected by hand from McCurtain County, Oklahoma (n = 14) and Bradley (n = 1), Calhoun (n = 2), Faulkner (n = 1), Greene (n = 1), Hempstead (n = 1), Marion (n = 2), Searcy (n = 1), and Union (n = 14) counties, Arkansas. Fresh fecal samples were collected from the rectum of each individual for examination of coccidia and placed in individual vials containing 2.5% (w/v) aqueous potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7). They were examined by light microscopy after flotation in Sheather’s sugar solution (specific gravity = 1.30). Measurements were taken on 5–30 sporulated oocysts from three lizards using a calibrated ocular micrometer and reported in micrometres (μm) with means followed by the ranges in parentheses; photographs were taken using Nomarski interference-contrast optics. Oocysts were up to ~257 days old when measured and photographed. Descriptions of oocysts and sporocysts follow guidelines of Wilber et al. (1998) as follows: oocyst length (L) and width (W), their ranges and ratios (L/W), micropyle (M), oocyst residuum (OR), polar granule(s) (PG), sporocyst length (L) and width (W), their ranges and ratio (L/W), sporocyst (SP), Stieda body (SB), substieda body (SSB), parastieda body (PSB), sporocyst residuum (SR). Photovouchers of the parasites are deposited in the Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology (HWML), Lincoln, Nebraska. Host vouchers are deposited in the