White-tailed eagle () as the definitive host of in the Czech Republic.

The white-tailed eagle, , has been involved in the life cycle of several species as the intermediate and definitive host. To date, it has been supposed that the eagle might play the role as the definitive host for . , and, herein, we tried to elucidate it based on morphometric and molecular analyses. One out of two eagles harbored oocysts (17.0-17.4 × 11.3-11.9 μm) and sporocysts (11.3-12.3 × 8.3-9.3 μm) in the intestinal mucosa, whose sequences at rRNA, rRNA, ITS1, and showed similar identity (97.64-100%) to published sequences of . from other hosts. The presence of sporulated oocysts in the lamina propria of villi confirms that . truly infects the white-tailed eagle. The white-tailed eagle is confirmed as the definitive host of . in the Czech Republic.