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Haemosporidian Parasites Were Detected in 46 of 47 Hooded Crows in Italy

Hooded-form carrion crow in Lido di Ostia, Rome, Italy
Research · Disease, parasites & microbiology

Haemosporidian parasites were detected in 46 of 47 Hooded Crows (Corvus corone cornix) examined in northwestern Italy. Haemosporidians are vector-borne blood parasites of birds and include the genera Plasmodium, Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon. The study, published on 29 April 2026, analysed several organs from each bird to investigate both parasite diversity and where different lineages occurred inside the body.

The crows had been collected in the Province of Turin during 2010–2011 as part of an authorised wildlife-control programme. Researchers screened samples from the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, skeletal muscle and brain using nested PCR targeting parasite mitochondrial DNA, followed by sequencing. A positive PCR result shows that parasite DNA was present in the sampled tissue, but does not by itself show how severely a bird was affected or whether it had clinical disease.

Almost every Hooded Crow carried haemosporidian parasites

Overall infection prevalence was 97.9%. Leucocytozoon parasites were detected in all 46 infected crows, while Plasmodium was detected in 24 birds and Haemoproteus in eight—52.2% and 17.4% of the infected birds, respectively. Mixed infections were common, occurring in more than two-thirds of infected birds.

Five Leucocytozoon lineages were identified

Five Leucocytozoon lineages were identified. The lineage COCOR09 dominated and was widely distributed across the examined organs, whereas other lineages showed more restricted tissue patterns. COCOR13, for example, was detected only in heart tissue.

Sequencing also identified one Haemoproteus lineage, CXPIP27, and three Plasmodium lineages—LINN1, GRW06 and SGS1—reported by the authors as first records in Hooded Crow. The three Plasmodium lineages are already known from other bird species and have broad geographic distributions.

Parasite lineages differed in tissue distribution

The researchers found a strong relationship between parasite lineage and the organs in which it was detected. Birds carrying more Leucocytozoon lineages also tended to have parasites detected in a larger number of organs.

The authors argue that sampling several organs and identifying parasites to lineage level can reveal infection patterns that would be missed by more limited screening.

Sources and image credit

  1. Starvaggi Cucuzza, L., Pregel, P., Pérez-Rodríguez, A. D., Bollo, E., & Scaglione, F. E. (2026). Lineage-specific tissue distribution and high prevalence of haemosporidian parasites in hooded crows (Corvus cornix) from northwestern Italy. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 13, 1724903.

Image: Ryan Hodnett / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Hooded Crow in Lido di Ostia, Rome, Italy, 2 March 2024. Representative photograph, not a study bird. Cropped to 16:9. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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Disease, parasites & microbiology

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