-15- 



were fed on human volunteers, one of whom developed a small lesion 17 

 days after one insect made a 30 second bloodless probe. The vector 

 was initially identified as "P. paraensis " Costa Lima, but was later 

 reexamined by Williams (1983) and determined to be most similar to 

 Lu . panamensis (Shannon) rather than paraensis . To demonstrate a natural 

 infection of leishmaniasis in sand flies and to strengthen their case 

 for incriminating the vector ( Lu . panamensis ), Strangways-Dixon and 

 Lainson (1962), collected approximately 270 wild female sand flies, 

 triturated them in sterile Locke's solution and inoculated half of 

 the suspension into the back of an uninfected hamster. Two months 

 later a small dermal swelling was noted at the site of the 

 inoculation. Stained smears from the lesion revealed leishmaniae 

 (Strangways-Dixon and Lainson, 1962). This experiment showed that 

 some wild-caught sand flies were naturally infected, but since all 

 specimens collected were pooled, it was not determined which species 

 was (were) infected. Subsequent dissections of 334 newly caught, man- 

 biting Lutzomyia revealed epimastigote-1 ike infections in two specimens, 

 one each of Lu_. oval lesi (Ortiz) and Lu. cruciata (Coq.). In view of 

 the scanty infections, the authors felt that these more likely 

 represented Leptomonas or Herpetomonas rather than Leishmania 

 promastigotes. 



In Brazil, wild-caught Lu. longipalpis and Lu. renei (Martins, 

 Falcao, and da Silva), allowed to feed on a strain of Leishmania 

 isolated from a human patient in Belize, also successfully transmitted 

 the parasite (Coelho and Falcao, 1962). 



Williams (1966a) collected wild sand flies in Belize and fed them 

 on a leishmanial lesion on a hamster. Two to three days later, the 



