Fig. 4

Photomicrographs of Giemsa-stained thin smear blood films. As is shown, classic diverse forms of Babesia microti parasites in rodents’ erythrocytes were observed, including dot form (a), ovoid form (b), ring form (c), pyriform (d), headphone form with two chromatin dots (e), Maltese cross form (also known as tetrad form) (f), and ameboid forms (g). Most of the infected red blood cell had one parasite (a–g), but two parasites in one red blood cell were also observed (h)