STUDIES BY PHASE-CONTRAST MICROSCOPY 
ON DISTRIBUTION OF PATTERNS OF 
HEMOLYMPH COAGULATION 
INIA SECTS. 
By CHARLES GREGOIRE 
Department of Biochemistry, 
University of Liége, Belgium 
(Wir ONE PLATE) 
A category of hyaline hemocytes (coagulocytes) is playing an im- 
portant part in the inception of the plasma coagulation in insect 
hemolymph (Grégoire and Florkin, 1950). Differences in the reac- 
tions of these corpuscles to contact with foreign surfaces and in those 
of the surrounding plasma were recorded previously for various in- 
sects (Grégoire, 1951). On the basis of these differences, a classifica- 
tion of the process of hemolymph coagulation in insects into four pat- 
terns of microscopic pictures has been suggested (Grégoire, 1951). 
In former observations on the distribution of the patterns in 420 
species of insects, predominance of one of these patterns has been 
recorded in several groups of various extension in the classification 
(Grégoire, 1955a). The material used in these studies consisted ex- 
clusively of representatives of insects from the Old World fauna 
(mostly European, and a few Mediterranean and African species). 
The aim of the present investigations is to compare the previous 
results with data obtained from Neotropical species. In July and 
August 1954, during a stay at the Canal Zone Biological Area, the 
Smithsonian Institution’s tropical preserve on Barro Colorado Island, 
the writer collected and examined samples of hemolymph from 630 
insects, belonging to about 230 species. 
METHODS 
The samples of hemolymph were prepared by the procedure used 
in former studies (Grégoire, 1951, 1955). In most specimens the 
hemolymph issuing from severed or punctured appendages (antennae, 
legs, wings, joints of the wing cases) was dropped as rapidly as pos- 
sible onto the edge of a cover glass lying on a slide and was allowed 
to spread out into films. Under optimal conditions, streaming of the 
1 This is No. 7 in the series of papers entitled “Blood Coagulation in Arthro- 
pods” published in various journals. 
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 134, NO. 6 
