page_title: Leucocytozoon
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Leucocytozoon / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of Leukocytozoen danilewskyi by Hans Ziemann published in 1898. Drawing shows sexual stages of parasite from the blood of the owl Athene noctua, stained with Romanowsky's stain.
context_page_description: Leucocytozoon is a genus of parasitic alveolates belonging to the phylum Apicomplexa.
  The species of this genus use blackflies as their definitive host and birds as their intermediate host. There are over 100 species in this genus. Over 100 species of birds have been recorded as hosts to these parasites.
context_section_description: The first described observation of a Leucocytozoon parasite may have been by Vasily Danilewsky, who described certain parasites he observed in the blood of birds as "Leucocytozaire" in 1888 (as they appeared to infect leukocytes). A more detailed description of parasites resembling Leucocytozoon was published in 1894 by N. Sakharoff from the blood of birds near Tbilisi. Soon thereafter in 1898, Hans Ziemann described a Leucocytozoon parasite from the blood of the owl Athene noctua, naming it Leukocytozoen danilewskyi in honor of Danilewsky. N. M. Berestneff was the first to use the current genus name Leucocytozoon while describing parasites he called Leucocytozoon danilewskyi from several common birds. The genus was subsequently formally defined in 1908 by Louis Sambon, and has remained largely unchanged since. In 1930 and 1931, Earl O'Roke and Louis V. Skidmore independently discovered black flies to be the vector of Leucocytozoon species.
caption: Drawing of owl blood cells parasitized by Leukocytozoen danilewskyi by Hans Ziemann in 1898
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