Metacyclic Trypanosoma vivax possess a surface coat.

Coated metacyclics of Trypanosoma vivax exist in the hypopharynges of infected tsetse flies and are extruded in low numbers when the flies are induced to probe onto warm slides or into medium. After extensive searching of T. vivax-infected proboscides, and resort to a process for the examination of single, extruded, metacyclic trypanosomes, electron microscopic evidence is presented that, contrary to an earlier report, metacyclic T. vivax acquire a surface coat before contact with the mammalian host. Since T. vivax exhibits antigenic variation, the role of the surface coat in this species is likely to be functionally equivalent to the surface coat of the other tsetse-transmitted trypanosome species, T. brucei and T. congolense.