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flies fed on the forearm of a human volunteer. Two lesions were 

 produced about four weeks later, and in both cases the vector fly was 

 Lu. cruciata . 



In the same country, Disney (1966) designed a trap to catch sand 

 flies attracted to rodents and found that Lu. olmeca olmeca (Vargas 

 and Najera) was highly attracted to them. Later, using this 

 technique, he found Lu. o. olmeca naturally infected with I . m. 

 mexicana (Disney, 1968). In neighboring Yucatan Peninsula, Biagi et 

 al . (1965) confirmed the importance of Lu. _o. olmeca as a vector of 

 leishmaniasis, and transmitted the parasite to a volunteer by bite of 

 a naturally infected fly (Lainson, 1982). 



Lainson and Shaw (1968) demonstrated that the vector of 

 L mexicana amazonensis in the Amazon forests of Brazil is 

 Lu . f laviscutel lata (Mang.), a species highly attracted to the rodent 

 Proechimys guyanensis , the principal reservoir host. Of 7,322 flies 

 dissected between 1968 and 1973, 45 or 0.6% were infected with 

 promastigotes. Parasites from 18 of these infected flies were 

 inoculated into hamsters and 15 of the inoculations produced typical 

 L mexicana amazonensis infections (Ward et _§_]_•> 1973). These workers 

 also transmitted the disease from hamster to hamster on four occasions 

 using laboratory-bred Lu. f laviscutel lata (Ward _et aj_., 1977). From 

 these findings it was concluded that L_u_. f laviscutel lata is the 

 principal, and probably only, vector of L. mexicana amazonensis in the 

 Amazon region (Lainson and Shaw, 1979). 



Leishmania brazi 1 ienensis panamensis (Panamanian cutaneous 

 leishmaniasis). Natural flagellate infections have been recorded in 

 numerous neotropical sand fly species, but it was not until extensive 



