The population of Brazilian caimans is considered the largest in the world. Brazil is the second-larges t exporter of fur and Brazilian alligator farming is a
potential aquaculture produc tion in agribusiness
and an alternative to reduce the disorderly and illegal ex traction of these wild animals. Therefore, a strict sanitary scheme is necessary for
the breeding sites to avoid the spread of diseases . Among the infections that affect these animals, Brazilian caimans are hosts of a great number of parasites, including hemoparasites .
In 2018-2020 , eleve n Caiman crocodilus from Mato Grosso State were collected and screened
for haemogregarine parasites. Through morphological analysis, a species of the genus Hepatozoon (Adeleorina: Hepatozoidae) was identified with free gamonts [Fig.1a], gamonts with cytoplasmic vacuoles [Fig.1b] and mature gamonts [Fig.1c] in the blood smears , and meronts with merozoites
[Fig.1d-f]
in the liver of these animals .
The eleven isolates amplified targeting the 18S gene have shown 100% similarity among them, and 98.4% - 98.8% in comparison with other isolates of Hepatozoon caimani , the only species known to infect Brazilian caimans so far. Complementary to this, the phylogeny revealed a main clade of isolates from Brazilian caimans, divided into two subclades, one of this study and the other with Hepatozoon caimani isolates only [Fig. 2]. This result brings new insights on Hepatozon diversity infecting the caimans, with a possible new species reported in this study and generates important information for diseases in alligator farming in Brazil.