Flea surveillance on wild mammals in northern region of Xinjiang, northwestern China

Abstract

Flea distribution in northern region of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and fluctuations of the annual fleas index in Alataw Pass were investigated. During a 4-year (2015–2018) study, 5789 fleas were collected directly from 15 mammals at eight counties in northern XUAR of northwestern China. Nineteen flea species, belonging to sixteen genera and seven families, were further confirmed by four genetic markers (18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, COI and COII) after morphological observation. Pulex irritans and Paraceras crispum parasitizing Asian badgers (Meles leucurus) were recorded for the first time. In addition, the fluctuations of the annual fleas index in Alataw Pass were surveyed. Xenopsylla gerbilli minax, Xenopsylla conformis conformis and Nosopsyllus laeviceps laeviceps were highly detected in the warm season while Paradoxopsyllus repandus, Ctenophthalmus dolichus dolichus and Coptopsylla lamellifer ardua were only found in the cold season. These findings extend our knowledge of flea species, distribution and annual fluctuations especially in China-Kazakhstan border.

Theileria, Hepatozoon and Taenia infection in great gerbils (Rhombomys opimus) in northwestern China

“…1 ), where the predominant vegetation included clostridium ( Haloxylon ammodendron ) and saltcedar ( Tamarix sp.) ( Liu et al, 2012 ) while the climate was temperate continental climate with cool, dry winters, and hot, dry summers ( Shu et al, 2020 ).

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Ecology and social behavior of the midday gerbil Meriones meridianus: Insights from long-term research in the wild and seminatural environments

“…Gerbils are natural hosts of a broad range of ticks and fleas and play an important role in transmission of highly dangerous diseases, such as plague and tularemia. Both plague and tularemia are vectorborne infectious diseases transmitted by fleas of numerous wild rodents, which are natural carriers of these diseases and other important epidemics in different regions around the world [30][31][32][33][34] . Several natural foci of plague and tularemia exist in the Caspian Sea region and the persistence of these zoonotic foci increases the risk of re-emergence as people living in these areas may be in contact with rodents and fleas occasionally [35][36][37][38] .…”