Abstract
Simulium damnosum Theobald is a common biting fly in many parts of Africa and an important vector of human onchocerciasis. After the female has bitten a man, the blood in the hinder part of the insect's mid-intestine forms an approximately spherical mass, which, as Blacklock1 observed, retains its form when removed from the gut. During recent dissections, it was noticed that the blood was completely enclosed in a membrane which could not be detected in unfed flies. It was evidently produced by the wall of the mid-intestine during the blood-meal, and appeared to be a peritrophic membrane rather unlike those found in various other insects2. One of the membranes, removed from the insect, was sent to Dr. V. B. Wigglesworth, who examined it and found that it gave a positive chitosan test for chitin and confirmed that it was a peritrophic membrane. He also directed my attention to the presence of a peritrophic membrane in two other Nematocera, Anopheles maculipennis3 and Phlebotomus papatasii4. I have found one in Simulium griseicolle Becker.
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References
Blacklock, D. B., Ann. Trop. Med. Parasit., 20, 1, (1926).
Wigglesworth, V. B., “The Principles of Insect Physiology” (London, 1939).
Yaguzhinskaya, L. V., Med. Parasitol., 9, 601 (1940).
Dolmatova, A. V., Med. Parasitol., 11, 52 (1942).
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LEWIS, D. A Peritrophic Membrane in Simulium. Nature 165, 978 (1950). https://doi.org/10.1038/165978b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/165978b0
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