Dracunculus lutrae

Cleveland, Christopher A., Garrett, Kayla B., Cozad, Rebecca A., Williams, Brianna M., Murray, Maureen H. & Yabsley, Michael J., 2018, The wild world of Guinea Worms: A review of the genus Dracunculus in wildlife, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 7 (3), pp. 289-300 : 297-298

4.4. Dracunculus lutrae

Dracunculus lutrae was first described from specimens collected from otters from Ontario, Canada ( Table 2) ( Crichton and Beverly-Burton, 1973). A molecular study conducted on Dracunculus from various wildlife species in Ontario, Canada revealed that 18 otters were infected with D. lutrae but two other otters were infected with D. insignis ( Elsasser et al., 2009) . Recently, 184 river otters ( Lontra canadensis ) from Arkansas were examined for the presence of Dracunculus species (Tumlison and Surf, 2018). Twelve otters were found to have cysts on the distal extremities consistent with Dracunculus infections . An individual nematode from each otter was genetically characterized and all were D. insignis . These data indicate that the distribution of D. lutrae and D. insignis in otters may be constrained by a latitudinal gradient, with D. lutrae occurring above 45̊ N and D. insignis occurring below 45̊ N. Few studies have assessed the prevalence and distribution of D. lutrae in otters, but unidentified Dracunculus spp . or molecularly unconfirmed

D. lutrae have been reported in several locations in North America including Kentucky, Alabama, New York, and Ontario, Canada ( Table 2) ( Cheatum and Cook, 1948; Crichton and Beverly-Burton, 1974; Fleming et al., 1977; Kimber and Kollias, 2000; Elsasser et al., 2009; Barding and Lacki, 2015). To date, no studies have been conducted on possible paratenic hosts, but based off research conducted on D. insignis , it is assumed that fish and/or frogs could be involved in transmission.