The development of Dirofilaria immitis in the mosquito Aedes aegypti.

Abstract

1. The developmental stages of D. immitis in the mosquito A. aegypti at 26°C. have been followed in living and fixed preparations, and the fates of the cell groups of the microfilaria have been traced.2. The larvae spend the first six or seven days inside the distal cells of the Malpighian tubules; during the next six days they inhabit the lumen of the tubules and eventually migrate to the head of the mosquito on the fifteenth to seventeenth day.3. The “nuclear-column“ cells contribute largely to the formation of the oesophagus of the infective larva.4. The G cells 1–3 produce the intestine and the G4 cell forms the anal plate and then the rectum.5. The anal pore ultimately becomes the anus.