Garcia et al. Parasites Vectors (2020) 13:308 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-020-04169-0 RESEARCH Pan-American Trypanosoma (Megatrypanum) trinaperronei n. sp. in the white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann and its deer ked Lipoptena mazamae Rondani, 1878: morphological, developmental and phylogeographical characterisation Herakles A. Garcia 1,2* , Pilar A. Blanco 2,3,4 , Adriana C. Rodrigues 1 , Carla M. F. Rodrigues 1,5 , Carmen S. A. Takata 1 , Marta Campaner 1 , Erney P. Camargo 1,5 and Marta M. G. Teixeira 1,5* Abstract Background: The subgenus Megatrypanum Hoare, 1964 of Trypanosoma Gruby, 1843 comprises trypanosomes of cervids and bovids from around the world. Here, the white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus (Zimmermann) and its ectoparasite, the deer ked Lipoptena mazamae Rondani, 1878 (hippoboscid fy), were surveyed for trypanosomes in Venezuela. Results: Haemoculturing unveiled 20% infected WTD, while 47% (7/15) of blood samples and 38% (11/29) of ked guts tested positive for the Megatrypanum-specifc TthCATL-PCR. CATL and SSU rRNA sequences uncovered a single species of trypanosome. Phylogeny based on SSU rRNA and gGAPDH sequences tightly cluster WTD trypanosomes from Venezuela and the USA, which were strongly supported as geographical variants of the herein described Trypa- nosoma (Megatrypanum) trinaperronei n. sp. In our analyses, the new species was closest to Trypanosoma sp. D30 from fallow deer (Germany), both nested into TthII alongside other trypanosomes from cervids (North American elk and European fallow, red and sika deer), and bovids (cattle, antelopes and sheep). Insights into the life-cycle of T. trinaper- ronei n. sp. were obtained from early haemocultures of deer blood and co-culture with mammalian and insect cells showing fagellates resembling Megatrypanum trypanosomes previously reported in deer blood, and deer ked guts. For the frst time, a trypanosome from a cervid was cultured and phylogenetically and morphologically (light and electron microscopy) characterised. Conclusions: In the analyses based on SSU rRNA, gGAPDH, CATL and ITS rDNA sequences, neither cervids nor bovids trypanosomes were monophyletic but intertwined within TthI and TthII major phylogenetic lineages. One host spe- cies can harbour more than one species/genotype of trypanosome, but each trypanosome species/genotype was found in a single host species or in phylogenetically closely related hosts. Molecular evidence that L. mazamae may © The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativeco mmons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/ zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Open Access Parasites & Vectors *Correspondence: heraklesantonio@gmail.com; mmgteix@icb.usp.br 1 Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil Full list of author information is available at the end of the article