The host specificity of blood parasites recovered from a survey of 527 birds in Cameroon
and Gabon was examined at several levels within an evolutionary framework. Unique
mitochondrial lineages of Haemoproteus were recovered from an average of 1.3 host
species (maximum= 3) and 1.2 host families (maximum= 3) while lineages of Plasmodium
were recovered from an average of 2.5 species (maximum= 27) and 1.6 families (maximum=
9). Averaged within genera, lineages of both Plasmodium and Haemoproteus were …