From liarch1988 to Arril 1989 investigation of deciles, animal reserveâ€™srnof visceral leishManiasis were carried out in the Aha Roha p2asantrnassociation, one of the knolln end'~mic foci of visceral h~isl1mar.iasis inrnSoutlwest Ethiopia (i!'wthern Gmo Administt'dtivp. Rellion). In Vlis study arntotal of 280 individuals of rliff?rent species of rod,?nts, small and, lar02rncarnivores and fel'l domestic animals i'/ere examined. Tissups from the variousrnorgans viz., spleen, bone-marrow, liver, skin and a fe1 tiro'Js of car'iiac bloodrn'Iere cultured in NNi'l mediur.J overlayed ,lith Locke's solution for the isolationrnLeishmania. Tissue smears from the aGcve organs wcr" oreparcd from all thernanimals and checked for the amastigotes of L. donovani. ,qtter.Jpts ,!ere alsornmade to isolate leishmania parasiti!S indirectly, hy the intraocrit.onea.lrninoculation of spl,?cn suspension into SUsclJtihle laboratory rodentsrn(hamsters, Salb/c mice and nite mice). To see the possible ~otentialrnreservoir hosts, selectEd species of rodents (born an:! reared in the animalrnhouse) were inoculated 'lith L. donovan I promastigotes isolated fro a naticntrnin Aba Roba. A Leishmania S0. 'las isolated from the spleen culture of arnpround squirrel (Xerus rutilus) and b'/O flaJellates which were considered tornbe tryranosomes p.re a 1 so reCOVf~r00 from the ) 1 ooel cu ltures of trIo otherrnground squirrels. The results for the rest of the animals were n