| babesia microti-like parasites detected in feral raccoons (procyon lotor) captured in hokkaido, japan. | raccoons (procyon lotor), which have recently become feral in japan, were examined for the presence of babesia microti-like parasites. out of 372 raccoons captured in the west-central part of hokkaido, 24 animals with splenomegaly were selected and tested by nested pcr targeting the babesial 18s rrna gene. b. microti-like parasites were detected in two of the 24 individuals, and their dna sequences were identical to that of the b. microti-like parasite reported from raccoons in the united states ... | 2005 | 16141672 |