VIRUSES OF CHELONIA

Viruses occurring in turtles and tortoises are hetergeneous but according to ecologic characteristics and pathogenic properties they can be divided in two major groups: 1. Arboviruses (toga-, flavi-, rhabdo- and bunyaviruses) transmitted by arthropods cause severe diseases in homoiothermic vertebrates. The viruses are of great epidemiological interest in human and veterinary medicine. Chelonia and other reptiles infected by bites of vectors e. g. Aedes, Anopheles, Culex develop cyclic viremia without injury. The ectothermic animals maintain inapparent arbovirus infections during hibernation and they play role as reservoirs for these viruses. 2. Viruses of Chelonia origin (papova-, herpes-, irido- and paramyxoviruses) associated with diseases of infected turtles and tortoises have been described frequently during the last 20 years. Several viruses or virus-like particles could be demonstrated in affected reptiles mainly by electron microscopy. Especially herpesviruses seem to attack Chelonia and epizootics due to infections with these viruses were reported in several reptiles in collections. However, the etiological role of the agents detected is not well documented yet.