FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON DISTRIBUTION 



OF PATTERNS OF COAGULATION OF THE 



HEMOLYMPH IN NEOTROPICAL 



INSECTS x 



By CHARLES GREGOIRE 



Department of Biochemistry, Institut Leon Frcdcricq 

 University of Liege, Belgium 



The present paper is a contribution to a long-term inquiry on dis- 

 tribution of patterns of hemolymph coagulation in various arthropods, 

 especially in insects. 



The reactions of the main elements involved in the process of co- 

 agulation of the hemolymph — a category of unstable hyaline hemo- 

 cytes (coagulocytes: Gregoire and Florkin, 1950) and the plasma — 

 differ in various insects. These differences, appreciated by phase- 

 contrast microscopy, have been classified into four patterns of micro- 

 scopic pictures (Gregoire, 1951). 



The characters of these patterns may be described as follows : 



Pattern I. Inception of the plasma coagulation in the shape of 

 islands of coagulation around the hyaline hemocytes. — Selective alter- 

 ations in the unstable hyaline hemocytes (shrinkages of the cell body 

 and occasionally of the nucleus, sudden expansions, bulging of blisters 

 and of blebs) result in exudation or in explosive discharge of cell 

 material into the surrounding fluid. Coagulation of the plasma starts 

 in the shape of circular islands of granular consistency around the 

 altered hyaline hemocytes. The islands of coagulation develop to a 

 certain size; then their increase stops. At the beginning of the 

 process, the islands are scattered and separated by fluid channels. 

 When the coagulation proceeds farther, the plasma in these channels 

 clots into a granular substance in which the islands preserve generally 

 their original size and shape. 



The mechanism involved in pattern I is identical to one of the types 

 of coagulation described by Hardy (1892), Tait (1910, 191 1), Tait 

 and Gunn (1918), Numanoi (1938), and Gregoire (1955b) in crus- 



1 This is No. 9 in a series of papers entitled "Blood Coagulation in Arthro- 

 pods" published in various journals. 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 139, NO. 3 



