Relative white blood cell counts, heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and discovery of blood parasites in wild dugong (Dugong dugon) at Lingayan Island, Toli-toli, Indonesia

Vet World Vol.13 September-2020 Article-13

Research Article

Veterinary World, 13(9): 1849-1853

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2020.1849-1853

Aryani Sismin Satyaningtijas¹, Agik Suprayogi¹, Huda Shalahudin Darusman¹, Ardiansyah Nurdin², and Desrayni Hanadhita¹

1. Department of Anatomy Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia.
2. Study Program of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Medical, Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Indonesia.

Background and Aim: This study was conducted to investigate the relative white blood cell (WBC) counts and the heterophil-to-lymphocyte (H/L) ratio and to analyze the presence of blood parasites in wild dugongs at Lingayan Island. It is expected that the results of this study could provide additional knowledge about the physiological conditions of wild dugongs in their natural habitats, which can serve as basic data in dugong conservation efforts, especially in Indonesia.

Materials and Methods: A wild dugong was captured around Lingayan Island. Blood samples were collected from the saphenous vein, and blood smears were prepared immediately. The blood smears were examined for leukocyte identification, calculation of relative WBC counts, and presence of blood parasites. The H/L ratio was calculated based on the obtained relative WBC counts.

Results: The relative WBC counts included heterophils 19.4%, lymphocytes 76.4%, and monocytes 3.6%, and the H/L ratio was 0.25. Intraerythrocytic parasites were identified and suspected to be Anaplasma and Babesia.

Conclusion: This study reports leukocyte values from free-ranging dugongs captured in Lingayan Island, Indonesia. Based on the H/L ratio, the dugong examined, in this study, did not experience chronic stress. However, the discovery of blood parasites could be one of the threatening factors for the dugong population. Keywords: Anaplasma, Babesia, blood smear, leukocytes, sirenian.

Keywords: Anaplasma, Babesia, blood smear, leukocytes, sirenian.

How to cite this article: Satyaningtijas AS, Suprayogi A, Darusman HS, Nurdin A, Hanadhita D (2020) Relative white blood cell counts, heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and discovery of blood parasites in wild dugong (Dugong dugon) at Lingayan Island, Toli-toli, Indonesia, Veterinary World, 13(9): 1849-1853.

Received: 20-04-2020 Accepted: 22-07-2020 Published online: 10-09-2020

Corresponding author: Aryani Sismin Satyaningtijas E-mail: niekesis@yahoo.co.id

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2020.1849-1853

Copyright: Satyaningtijas, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.