Litomosa vetuni – a discovery named after the university
A parasite whose name sounds a bit like a spell from Harry Potter was discovered by a team led by Professor Jiří Pikula at the University of Veterinary Sciences Brno. They named it after their own alma mater: Litomosa vetuni. VETUNI is, in fact, the university’s official abbreviated name.
“In honor of the institution where the filaria was discovered, we named it Litomosa vetuni,” says Professor Jiří Pikula, DVM, Ph.D., Dipl. ECZM. “It is a new bat parasite: a nematode belonging to the filariae of the genus Litomosa.”
According to Professor Pikula, his research has a very interesting story: “It began with research focused on reproductive parameters and the quality of bat semen, and the de facto accidental discovery of the parasite’s developmental stages (microfilariae) among the sperm of the spotted bat. As part of a subsequent, more extensive study, we then found adults of this parasite in the abdominal and thoracic cavities, as well as in the uterus of a pregnant female striped bat. By analyzing blood samples and ectoparasites collected from various bat species across a broader geographic area (Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia), we found that the diversity of these parasites circulating in bat populations is significantly higher and that there are likely additional undescribed species here.”
