PREVALENCE AND MOLECULAR ANALYSIS OF CATTLE CHEWING LICE BOVICOLA BOVIS IN MOSUL, IRAQ

Lice are small wingless permanent obligate external parasites, which cause different economic losses, such as alopecia, pruritus and weight reduction. This study was done in the period from January - December 2022 by collecting lice samples from different cattle herds located in different areas. Microscopically, the total lice infestation rate of 40.37% (220/545) was from the chewing lice Bovicola bovis. According to some risk factors, such as seasons, gender and breeds, a higher infestation rate was recorded in winter 56%, in males’ group 66.7%, and the Georgian foreign breed was higher 45.3%, compared to local breeds. Whereas there are no significant differences among age groups. Concerning the area of study, Izhilila 50% and Bazwaya 46.42% showed a higher infestation rate, compared to other areas. Molecular analysis, using the traditional polymerase chain reaction (PCR), confirmed that the species isolated from cattle in Mosul city was the chewing B. bovis, by amplification of the Cox1 gene, with an end product of 379 bp. The results of gene sequences confirmed the PCR findings, with the accession number PP599070, which matches 100% of the USA isolate and 94.33 to 98.29100% identity with a significant distance from the isolates of the same species in Australia recorded in the World GenBank. This is the first study at the molecular level to confirm the infestation of cattle with the species Bovicola bovis in Mosul, Iraq.