sp. meningoencephalitis in a captive bobcat.

sp. meningoencephalitis in a captive bobcat.

A geriatric captive bobcat () was euthanized due to progressive anorexia and lethargy. Meningoencephalitis with intralesional apicomplexan organisms was identified histologically. With immunohistochemistry, the organisms were immunolabeled by anti- antibodies. PCR targeting the ITS region of the parasite yielded an amplicon with >99.6% identity to several , , and sequences. Amplification of the 18S region yielded a sequence that was 99.9% similar to sequences of both (MN169125) and (KX470746). Inflammatory disease of the CNS due to sp. infection is uncommonly reported in felids and has not been reported previously in bobcats, to our knowledge. Here, we briefly review associated CNS disease in other felids, confirm that it can affect bobcats, and highlight the challenges of species-level identification of sp. in routine diagnostic work.