Psoroptes mites infestation in a captive Burmese Red Serow (Capricornis sumatraensis subspecies rubidus) of Indo-Burma bio-diversity hotspot

An 8 years old male Burmese Red Serow (Capricornis sumatraensis sub species rubidus) from Aizawl Zoological Park was presented to the Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex. An exploratory skin scraping revealed existence of nymphal as well as adult stages of mites of the Psoroptes spp. which were not associated with any overt lesions typical to mite infestation such as pruritus, erythema or scaling of the epidermis. The mites were identified as per their morphology, size and shape. Haemato-biochemical analysis revealed alteration of certain haematological and biochemical parameters. The red blood corpuscles were found to have anucleate cells with mild to absent central pallor. The absolute counts showed neutrophilic leucocytosis with mild monocytosis and lymphocytosis. Eosinophilic count was towards the higher side, indicating that the infestation was mild. The serum calcium, albumin, triglyceride, urea nitrogen (BUN) were found to be lower than normal, whereas serum ALT, AST, LDH, ALP and serum amylase were higher than the established reference indices. Due to lack of haemato-biochemical reference values specific to captive Serow, emphasis was given in this report to establish baseline data for this species.