Observations of a developing reverse convection cell on September 23, 1986 are examined using auroral images acquired with the UV imager on board the Viking Spacecraft. The cell possesses a counter-clockwise rotational sense and evolves on the duskside of the northern auroral distribution between the duskside oval and a complex duskside transpolar arc system. As the structure evolves, it grows and appears to displace the transpolar arc toward the dawn. We interpret these observations in terms of a model proposed by Burch et al., [1992> in which open field lines produced by merging on the high latitude magnetopause produce reverse convection cells between the oval and the transpolar arcs associated with horse-collar or teardrop auroral patterns. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1996