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Some articles and publications posted to this website refer to Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health, which has since changed its name to Merck Animal Health.

Scientist identifies new Eimeria species

A new species of coccidia has been discovered and named by a poultry technical service specialist at Merck Animal Health.

Steve Fitz-Coy, PhD, a parasitologist and widely recognized expert on coccidiosis, has proposed calling it Eimeria edgari in honor of his mentor, the late S. Allen Edgar, a poultry pathologist from Alabama’s Auburn University.

“I noticed something was different — uncharacteristic — and I became curious,” Fitz-Coy recalls, as he was evaluating coccidia from turkey flocks with coccidiosis. He spent the last few years studying the new species and its effects on poultry before presenting his findings at this year’s annual Poultry Science Association meeting.

“E. edgari is highly pathogenic in turkeys but, fortunately, is not pathogenic to chickens,” says Fitz-Coy, whose lab is located in the poultry-intense region of Delaware. The new species of Eimeria can be found in about six of every 10 samples from commercial turkey flocks around the US, as well as in wild turkeys, he says.

Fitz-Coy leading a wet lab on coccidiosis lesions.