Abstract
Ticks of the Ornithodorus moubata Murray (Ixodoidea, Argasidae) complex, distributed through East Africa, are known as vectors of African relapsing fever1. A laboratory strain of O. moubata porcinus (originally from Tanzania and bred according to the method of Geigy and Herbig1) uses the guinea-pig (Cavia porcellus L.) as experimental host. Guinea pig blood crystallises more easily than that of other hosts2 in the gut of blood-sucking arthropods3. In O. moubata crystals appear 5–10 d after the blood meal, first small (0.015–0.05 mm) and clear red, later up to 0.2 mm in all three directions and dark red. These ‘tick-grown’ crystals may still be present after even more than a year. They possibly serve as nutrient reserve4 since they finally disappear after prolonged starvation. We describe here a study of the formation and structure of these crystals and the changes within these crystals with time. We show the crystals to be composed principally of guinea-pig haemoglobin.
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SMIT, J., GRANDJEAN, O., GUGGENHEIM, R. et al. Haemoglobin crystals in the midgut of the tick Ornithodorus moubata Murray. Nature 266, 536–538 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/266536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/266536a0
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