Schellackia ptyodactyli sp. n. is described from the fan-footed gecko Ptyodactylus hasselquistii (Donndorf) found the lower Jordan Valley, Cis-Jordan. Endogenous development was studied in geckoes necropsied 7-11 days after being inoculated with blood containing sporozoites from naturally infected geckoes of the same species. Merogony and gamogony/oogony stages, as well as sporozoites, are described by light and electron microscopy. Merogony stages, microgamonts and sporozoites conformed in fine structure to that of other eimerian coccidia. whereas wall forming bodies of the macrogamonts showed some divergence from the general pattern characteristic of eimerians and Schellackia cf. agamae. Merogony stages occurred simultaneously with gamonts and sporozoites. In the blood, sporozoites entered leucocytes, thrombocytes and erythrocytes. Parasitaemia persisted for up to 2 years in some naturally infected geckoes in captivity.
The ultrastructure of the endogenous stages - merozoites, microgamonts, macrogamonts and oocysts, of Sarcocystis muriviperae from the snakes Vipera palaestinae and Coluber jugularis is described. Snakes were infected via white mice fed on sporocysts obtained from naturally infected snakes of the same species. Snakes examined 4 days post-infection contained only young and premature gamonts. Infection in snakes sacrificed on day 7 post-infection consisted predominantly of mature microgamonts and macrogamonts; snakes examined on day 10 post-infection revealed only oocysts. The fine structure of the endogenous stages from the two snakes, including size and contents of the wall-forming bodies, was identical, confirming their suggested conspecificity. Observed endogenous stages also conformed in their major details with the same developmental stages of other Sarcocystis species studied from other snakes and mammalian definitive hosts and from in vitro culture. However, they differed from the latter in size and contents of the wall-forming bodies. The observed fertilization process was reminiscent of that described earlier in S. bovicanis.