Two morphologically distinct forms of Demodex mites found in dogs with canine demodicosis from Vladivostok, Russia

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the morphology of Demodex canis and Demodex sp. cornei found in six dogs with canine demodicosis. A deep skin scraping technique was used for Demodex mite detection. Measurement data of 52 adult D. canis mites (26 females, 25 males and one specimen whose sex could not be determined) and 39 adult Demodex sp. cornei mites (22 females, 14 males and three specimens whose sex could not be determined) were reported. The correlation between body size of both Demodex species were estimated by the Student’s t-test. There was a significant correlation between short-tail and long-tail forms and total body length and length of the podosoma and opisthosoma (p<0.05). A significant difference was not found between the length of the gnathosoma and short-tail and long-tail forms (p>0.05). Demodex sp. cornei and D. canis, found in dogs from Vladivostok, were smaller than species from other countries. However, the present data did not significantly differ from other studies with D. canis and Demodex sp. cornei descriptions.