Cryptosporidium is a protozoan found in a wide variety of animal species which is responsible for gastritis and enteritis, but its epidemiology is poorly known in wild animals. The present investigation aimed to evaluate the prevalence of Cryptosporidium serpentis in gastric aspirate of captive snakes from the public serpentarium of the Butantan Institute (São Paulo, Brazil). Sampling was performed preferably one week after feeding, thereby preventing regurgitation due to manipulation. Smears were done from the gastric aspirate sediment obtained by centrifugation and stained by Kinyoun technique. Part of the pellet was submitted to RFLP-PCR technique for amplification of Cryptosporidium segment (833bp, CSP01) of SSU rRNA gene. The serpentarium was divided in three sections by species - the first housing eight Amaral´s Boa (Boa constrictor amarali), the second with ten jararacas (Bothropoides jararaca) and the last one with seven south american rattlesnakes (Caudisona durissa). The prevalence of C. serpentis found in this study for the snakes C. durissa, B. jararaca and B. constrictor was 57.14% (04/07), 40% (04/10) and 37.5% (03/08), respectively, thus revealing the high occurrence of this protozoan among captive snakes. Despite the high prevalence found, only B. constrictor amarali presented symptoms as regurgitation and weight loss, probably due to a different sensibility of this species to C. serpentis.
Bothropoides jararaca; Boa constrictor; Caudisona durissa; cryptosporidiosis; prevalence; snakes