Introduction and Acknowledgments

The primary object of my visit to Macquarie Island, made on December 2, 1949, during the meteorological station cruise of H.M.N.Z.S. Tutira, was to ascertain whether or not the penguins there are parasitized by Plasmodium relictum var. spheniscidae Fantham and Porter, 1944.

Penguins are common hosts for Plasmodium in zoological gardens in temperate countries. Thus Scott (1927), the first investigator to record parasites of this genus from penguins, found the blood of a King Penguin (Aptenodytes patagonica Miller) which died in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London during 1926 to be heavily infected with Plasmodium. Scott listed the species of parasite concerned as Plasmodium praecox, while at the same time suggesting that it might represent “a new form of Plasdomium”. Rodhain (1937, 1938, 1939) gave accounts of Plasmodium relictum infections in the Blackfoot Penguin, Spheniscus demersus (Linnaeus), in the Antwerp Zoological Gardens. That author confirmed his specific identification by transmitting the parasite to canaries, using as the vector infected Culex pipiens captured in the penguin shelters.

Fantham and Porter (1944) found a Plasmodium to be present in blood smears taken from penguins of four species in their natural habitats, and described it as a new variety (spheniscidae) of Plasmodium relictum. They justified their description of a new variety on the grounds of the large vacuoles of the ring stages, the large size of the schizonts, the high level of intraerythrocytic schizogony together with the low gametocyte level, and the small size of the gametocytes, as compared with the corresponding stages of Plasmodium relictum in other hosts. The hosts and their places of origin were as follows:

Spheniscus demersus (Linnaeus)—Saldanha Bay, South Africa.

(Eudyptes) = Megadyptes antipodes (Hombron and Jacquinot)—Foveaux Strait, New Zealand.

(Eudyptes crestatus) = E. chrysocome (Forster)—south of Gough Island.

Aptenodytes patagonica Miller—South Georgia.

During a survey of avian haematozoa of the New Zealand area (Laird, 1950) a sporozoan, apparently Plasmodium relictum var. spheniscidae, was found in the blood of two species of penguins. Of

twenty-eight examples of the Drooping-crested Penguin, Eudyptes pachyrhynchus (Gray) from which blood smears were taken on the Snares Islands in December, 1947, three proved to be very lightly infected, while a few plasmodia were found in smears from one of two examples of Megadyptes antipodes (Hombron and Jacquinot) from Campbell Island in January, 1948.

I am indebted to the Royal New Zealand Naval authorities for arranging for me to visit Macquarie Island, also to the Captain and officers of H.M.N.Z.S. Tutira for their kindness and co-operation in the course of the voyage; to Mr. A. Gardner, who gave me invaluable assistance in the field; and to Mr. N. M. Haysom, B.Sc., biologist with the Australian meteorological party on Macquarie Island, who was good enough to take some further smears for me in the early part of 1950.