Large-scale rearing of Glossina longipennis in the laboratory.

Glossina longipennis occurs in arid habitats of eastern Africa including Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan and Tanzania (Ford and Katondo, 1977; Moloo, 1985). It feeds on a range of vertebrate hosts including man, warthog, giraffe, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, dog, cat, hyaena, aardvark and ostrich; but buffalo, elephant and rhinoceros are its favoured hosts (Weitz, 1963). It is a vector of animal trypanosomiasis and at Nguruman, Kenya, it showed a Trypanosoma congolense infection rate of 4.8% and a T. vivax infection rate of 2.4% (Owaga, 1981). However, very little research has been carried out on G. longipennis compared with other tsetse since it has not been previously colonized. One previous attempt to rear this tsetse species, using rabbits as hosts, was unsuccessful (Owaga, 1981). The reported reasons for the failure were: unsuccessful mating, high abortion rate and decreased pupal weight with successive generations. The present communication reports the successful largescale rearing of this fusca group tsetse species. Its colonization was aimed to provide material to investigate its vector competence for Trypanosoma vivax, T. congolense and T.b. brucei. In mid-1987, 48 wild females of G.longipennis were caught in Nguruman (1°50'S/36°05'E), Kenya, and were brought to the ILRAD Tsetse Vector Laboratory. They were kept in a climate controlled room at a temperature of 25 ± 0.5°C with a relative humidity of 80-85%. The tsetse were fed on the ears of lop-eared rabbits daily except at week-ends. A total of 174 pupae,. mean weight 79.5 ± 1.8 mg, were produced by these field-caught tsetse. Tsetse which emerged from these pupae formed the parental stock of the colony. The number of mated females in the colony increased and reached the target of 1500 breeding females in December 1988. The current rearing techniques follow. Adults and pupae are kept in a climate controlled room as above. Pupae are kept in lOx 40 x 40 cm emergence cages, up to 2000 pupae/cage. The newly emerged tsetse are immobilized at 2-3°C and sexed. The