Mycoflora of Ostrich (Struthio camelus) gastrointestinal tract as a human hazard

Ostriches are susceptible to bacterial, fungal and parasitic diseases. One of the most common strategies to reduce microbial contamination in animal production systems is to identify microbe sources. In this regard, a first critical component for comprehensive farm-to-fork strategies to reduce the burden of foodborne illness is the identification of the pathogenic fungi in foodstuffs with animal sources, and the reduction of human pathogen contamination in food production. This study was carried out to identify to mycoflora in the ostriches' (Struthio camelus) gastrointestinal tract (GIT), in the northwest of Iran. The samples were taken from different parts of the gut tract, including crop, gizzard, intestine and caecum of 50 ostriches. Atotal of 396 fungal colonies were obtained from GIT. These isolates belonged to 17 genera, and Candida (18.7 %), Aspergillus (16.7 %), Monascus (10.6 %), Trichosporon (6.6 %) and Fusarium (6 %) were predominant isolates. Among the Candida isolates, C. tropicalis was the most predominant isolates following by C. albicans, C. glabrata and C. krusei. Aspergillus spp. and Monascus ruber were predominant isolates among the mould fungi.