The link between pigment and malaria parasites was used by Ronald Ross to identify the stages in the Plasmodium life cycle that occur within the mosquito, since, although these forms of the parasite are different in appearance to the blood stages, they still contain traces of pigment.
Ronald Ross使用色素和疟疾寄生虫之间的联系来确定疟原虫生命周期中发生在蚊内的阶段，因为虽然这些形式的寄生虫在外观上与血液阶段不同，但它们仍含有痕量色素。