Three years ago, dozens of African elephants mysteriously died in Zimbabwe. Now scientists have confirmed their killer: a rare and little-known bacterium that can cause organ inflammation leading to deadly hemorrhaging.
The bacterium, dubbed Pasteurellaceae Bisgaard taxon 45, turned up in samples from six of 15 elephants analyzed, researchers report October 25 in Nature Communications. The pathogen is closely related to Pasteurella multocida, which is known to cause hemorrhagic septicemia, or fatal blood poisoning, but Bisgaard taxon 45 had not been previously implicated in such infections.
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