Figure legends:
Figure 1. Location of the study area, which partially covered an area of the National Giant Panda Park. The spatial distributions of villages and protection stations where people were interviewed, the sampling locations, and mean centers of dead gorals and serows in Taibai, Foping, Zhouzhi and Ningshan in 2012 are also shown. The locations of the infrared cameras are shown in the lower right corner. Maps were created by ArcGIS 10.8.
Figure 2. A. Annual changes in the numbers of dead gorals in each county/district from 2012 to 2021. There were two death events among gorals in Ningshan County in 2012-2014 and 2016-2017. B.The P10 change in takins and gorals in the same area in 2018, 2019 and 2021. The number of gorals decreased rapidly in 2021 and was significantly lower than those in 2018 and 2019 (*: p <0.05). There was no significant change in the number of takins in 2018, 2019 or 2020.
Figure 3. Gross cutaneous lesions for gorals and serows infected withSarcoptes scabiei . A. Goral G2 that died on the side of the river and had no obvious alopecia; bloody crusts and cutaneous chapping were observed on the neck and elbow joints (on the upper corner of left). B. Goral G9, with severe alopecia and crusting on the trunk and neck. C. Goral G10, with severe alopecia and crusting on the skin of the neck and scapula. The photo of a carcass is in the upper right corner. D. A photo of serow S1 before its death. Severe crusting and alopecia were visible on the skin of the head, face, trunk and limbs.
Figure 4.Histopathological changes in cutaneous lesions and the morphology of mites. A. Sample from goral G2. Mild hyperkeratosis and hyperplasia of the stratum spinosum were present in the epidermis. The capillaries in the dermis were dilated. Mites were located in the epidermis (on the upper corner of right). B. Sample from G9. The entire skin area was necrotic. Mass necrotic neutrophils and numerous mites were visible in the area (in the upper left corner). C. Sample from S1. The epidermis showed papillomatosis, moderate hyperplasia and necrosis, the presence of inflammatory infiltrates, and severe hyperkeratosis. Numerous mites were present in the epidermis (in the lower left corner). Edema was observed in the dermis. D. Morphology of the mites. A large number of approximately 0.4-mm long mites with a globular idiosoma and wide ganthosoma, short and thick posterior legs and a terminal anus. Gn: gnathosoma; Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ, legs. A, B and C stained using hematoxylin and eosin. Images were captured with an Olympus CX 43 microscope and EPview Ver 1.2. (www.olympus-sis.com).
Figure 5. Alignment of the nucleotide sequences of the cox 1 gene and ITS2 region of S. scabiei . A. Alignment of cox 1.Eleven cox 1 sequences shared 98.6% to 100% identity with mites from gorals and serow in different areas. B Alignment of ITS2.Eleven ITS2 sequences shared 99.1% to 100% identity with mites from gorals and serows in different areas. C. Phylogenetic tree based on the nucleotide sequences of cox 1 . The phylogenetic tree shows that 11 sequences fell within the clade including S. scabiei from rabbits in China. The tree was constructed with MEGA 7.0 using the neighbor-joining method.