I noticed some unexplainable structures, which are birefringent under polarized light in Ornithodoros. I thought it could be the coxal gland, but its really big?
Or is it an artifact, because I've killed the ticks by freezing on dry ice.
Its a normal formaldehyde fixative wit HE stain.
Dear Mandy,
would you mind - please - to introduce a / give some scale in your images? Thank you!
Edited some minute after my first input to the original question (and an hour later again for "p. 42 and p. 52", see below!) : might those birefringent structures be the "salivary glands", or their content, respectively??
(cf: https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346/8441/31295000526367.pdf%3Bsequence=1 , micrograph, p. 42 and sketch p 52)
Dear Wolfgang (and followers),
thanks for your helpfull advice and this usefull thesis. It's an admirable and extensive work.
In the meantime, an expert in arthropod histology from the NIH solved the question. These structures are guanine crystals in the diverticula of the midgut, which are produced as nitrogenous waste during blood digestion.
Ciao, Mandy
Dear Mandy, thank you for revealing the "secret"../explanation..., I regret to have been wrong with my assumption in Re#02....but is hard to end up with a precise determinaton when not knowing about the real anatomical location/section plane in the section image.... interesting explanation though! Best wishes!
PS: unfortunately in the thesis (as cited above) no name of the author*) and/or publication year is given.... But perhaps / eventually someone else will solve that secret too...
NB edit: I overlooked: CHARLENE OLIVIA REAST, thesis for MSc.-Texas Tech University, and right now I found also the year of submission: 1971 (this was when I started studying Zoology and Botany...(:-)) ).
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