23 24 A frozen-stored blood clot of a wild brown bear cub Ursus arctos yesoensis that had been 25 captured in Hokkaido, Japan was examined for piroplasma infection using polymerase chain 26 reaction (PCR). Two 18S ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) sequences were generated . One 27 1565-bp sequence showed the highest similarity with B. gibsoni (95.9% identity) but, 28 phylogenetically, was found to ...
