Abstract: Phlebotomus major wui,an anthropophilic specics,was predominant among sandflies inKa ramay,Xinjiang of China.The females of this species collected in the wild and houseswere detected to be infected with promastigotes.Three isolates of promastigotes obtainedfrom P.major wui were inoculated intraperitoneally and subcutaneously into normal ham-sters or BALB/c mice which developed visceral leishmaniasis later.The mean size ofamastigotes in hamster viscera(smear observation) artificially inoculated with the culturedparasite originated from sandfly was significantly smaller than those in control hamster inoc-ulated with the cultured Leishmania turanica from great gerbils in situ.The promastigotesfrom P. major wui hardly grew in NNN medium.In addition,32P labeled gene gp63 was usedas probe to hybridize DNA prepared from L.infantum,L.turanica and Leishmania from thissandfly showed that marked homogeneity existed between the isolates from P. major wui andL.infantum.At the present time,visceral leishmaniasis did not occur in Karamay but cutaneousleishmaniasis (CL)has been evidenced.Thus,what is the source of natural infection of P. major wui? Whether L.turanica or L.infantum is the pathogen of human CL in this area? These are interesting aspects to deal with in the further study.