Confusing a Pollen Grain with a Parasite Egg: an Appraisal of “Paleoparasitological Evidence of Pinworm (Enterobius Vermicularis) Infection in a Female Adolescent Residing in Ancient Tehran”

Authors

Morgana Camacho, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio AroucaFollow
Karl Reinhard, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

12-2019

Document Type

Article

Citation

Korean J Parasitol Vol. 57, No. 6: 621-625, December 2019

https://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2019.57.6.621

Comments

© 2019, Korean Society for Parasitology and Tropical Medicine This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License

Abstract

There is often the risk of confusing pollen grains with helminth eggs from archaeological sites. Thousands to millions of pollen grains can be recovered from archaeological burial sediments that represent past ritual, medication and environment. Some pollen grain types can be similar to parasite eggs. Such a confusion is represented by the diagnosis of enterobiasis in ancient Iran. The authors of this study confused a joint-pine (Ephedra spp.) pollen grain with a pinworm egg. This paper describes the specific Ephedra pollen morphology that can be confused with pinworm eggs.