Reclassifying honey bee Trypanosomatidae parasites: Crithidia mellificae and Lotmaria passim

Finally available!  The full taxonomic characterization of one of the most abundant yet little understood parasites in honey bees, the trypanosomatid Lotmaria passim.

If you've detected trypanosomatids in your honey bees, it is possible they are the long recognized species Crithidia mellificae, but evidence now shows they are most likely to be the newly discovered species Lotmaria passim.

The manuscript includes light microscopy images for identification.  Hint:  If you think you've been seeing yeast spores in your gut macerates, take a closer look at the abundant "spheroid" stage of these parasites (see Figure 6 in the manuscript)!

Morphology may be carefully used to preliminarily discern L. passim from C. mellificae in honey bees (see below), but genetic confirmation is required for firm diagnosis.

Morphology comparison of the two honey bee trypanosomatid parasites.  (credit: R.S. Schwarz and Bee Bugs Blog)

GENETIC RESOURCES
Here are links to the NCBI Taxonomy page for L. passim and C. mellificae, where all current genetic Entrez records can be found.  The Table below (Table S1 from Schwarz et al. 2015) lists confirmed, reference genetic material for the type species.

Characterization of Two Species of Trypanosomatidae from the Honey Bee Apis mellifera: Crithidia mellificae Langridge and McGhee, 1967 and Lotmaria passim n. gen., n. sp Schwarz Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology Wiley Online Library