Available online 16 May 2024

A new Plasmodium parasite was discovered in the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus landeri.

We found 100% prevalence of Plasmodium cyclopsi infections in Doryrhina cyclops bats in Sierra Leone.

We provide the first known analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes of bat Plasmodium spp.

There is a close relationship between bat Plasmodium and the rodent taxon Plasmodium berghei.

Distribution of Plasmodium spp. of bats might be limited to Africa.

Malaria remains the most important arthropod-borne infectious disease globally. The causative agent, Plasmodium, is a unicellular eukaryote that develops inside red blood cells. Identifying new Plasmodium parasite species that infect mammalian hosts can shed light on the complex evolution and diversity of malaria parasites. Bats feature a high diversity of microorganisms including seven separate genera of malarial parasites. Three species of Plasmodium have been reported so far, for which scarce reports exist. Here we present data from an investigation of Plasmodium infections in bats in the western Guinean lowland forest in Sierra Leone. We discovered a new Plasmodium parasite in the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus landeri. Plasmodium cyclopsi infections in a member of leaf-nosed bats, Doryrhina cyclops, exhibited a high prevalence of 100%. Phylogenetic analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes and nine nuclear markers recovered a close relationship between P. cyclopsi and the new Plasmodium parasite with the rodent species Plasmodium berghei, a widely used in vivo model to study malaria in humans. The data suggests that the “rodent/bat” Plasmodium (Vinckeia) clade represents a diverse group of malarial parasites that would likely expand with a systematic sampling of small mammals in tropical Africa. Identifying the bat Plasmodium repertoire is central to our understanding of the evolution of Plasmodium parasites in mammals.

Plasmodium

Malaria

Rhinolophus

Haemosporidia

mtDNA genome

Phylogeny

Doryrhina

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Australian Society for Parasitology.