Tropical Dolphin Fungus Range Expands North
By Jason Heller, April 21, 2009 @ 01:00 AM (EST)
Source: NOAA
In August 2008, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin was found dead on the North Carolina coast, its skin cracked and ulcerated with an alarming growth of gray and white nodules.
This dolphin was confirmed as having lobomycosis, the first confirmed case in North Carolina waters of this chronic fungal skin infection.
Reports of this type of infection in both humans and dolphins are relatively common in the warmer coastal waters of South America. Cases of lobomycosis have also turned up in waters off both east and west coasts of southern Florida and the Texas Gulf Coast.
Now, however, the range of the fungus that causes the lobomycosis infection appears to be expanding northward.
In a study appearing in the April issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the National Ocean Service, NOAA Fisheries, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and University of Tennessee report on a potential change in the northern distribution of this fungus in North America...
This dolphin was confirmed as having lobomycosis, the first confirmed case in North Carolina waters of this chronic fungal skin infection.
Reports of this type of infection in both humans and dolphins are relatively common in the warmer coastal waters of South America. Cases of lobomycosis have also turned up in waters off both east and west coasts of southern Florida and the Texas Gulf Coast.
Now, however, the range of the fungus that causes the lobomycosis infection appears to be expanding northward.
In a study appearing in the April issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the National Ocean Service, NOAA Fisheries, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and University of Tennessee report on a potential change in the northern distribution of this fungus in North America...
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