Observations of Wolf-rayet stars in the emission-line galaxy Tololo 3.

A strong broad He II 4686 emission-line in the spectrum of the dwarf galaxy Tol 3 has been found. This emission originates from Wolf-Rayet stars mostly of WN type. The data are consistent with the following interpretations. Low luminosity WR stars (M_B = -5) contribute to the emission and an equal number of early-type stars and WR stars is observed in the central region of this galaxy. It is argued that a burst of star formation ended (4-6) x 10 to the 6th years ago on a short time scale (about 100,000 years) so that most of the O stars have evolved to WR phases. Alternatively Tol 3 may contain a very few number of very luminous WR stars (M_B = -9) which would only occur in supergiant H II regions.