Blood digestion in Ornithodorus moubata Murray sensu stricto Walton females (Ixodoidea: Argasidae) II. Modifications of midgut cells related to the digestive cycle and to the triggering action of mating.

The cellular organisation of midgut cells (see Grandjean, in press) depends on the digestive cycle which follows a blood meal. The phases of this cycle are characterised in O. moubata, and various "cell-types" are described, correlated and discussed. Mating triggers digestion: a) by an increased intracellular digestion (including the formation of heterophagolysosomes) during the rapid phase of digestion; b) by reactivating midgut cells in starving females, which then may perform vitellogenesis and lay few normal eggs.