Figure 2.

Giemsa-stained smears showing examples of bovine Babesia spp. kinetes found in tick hemolymph samples of Rh. microplus engorged females: (a) B. bovis kinetes can present a curved or semi-curved tail, but this is not always the case, with an anterior position nucleus (that generally could be found at the middle of the cells) that can have a mean length of 14.30 ± 0.922 μm and a mean width of 3.33 ± 0.315 μm. (b) B. bigemina kinetes show a straight tail and a median nucleus position, and present a smaller size to B. bovis kinetes (mean length of 11.27 ± 0.900 and width of 2.24 ± 0.287 μm). Kinetes size of both species can have variations depending on the strains examined and the geographic origin, added to the fact that B. bovis curved tail it is not always present, that makes the standardizations of the criteria difficult to be followed for microscopic identification.