Is the cattle tick Rhipicephalus annulatus Say, 1821 reared on the rabbit?

Abstract

The cattle tick Say, 1821 (Acari: Ixodidae) is the main tick species on cattle in Egypt. This study was designed to know the possibility of rearing on rabbits in order to obtaining an adequate tick number and maintaining this tick species in lab to the next generation. Additionally, a comparison was performed between some biological parameters in fed on rabbits with that fed on cows. Six New Zealand white rabbits were used as a lab animal for rearing. The animals were divided into two groups. The first (G1) included four rabbits and the second (G2) included two rabbits. In G1, larvae fed until to reach unfed adults those were detached, cleaned their mouth parts carefully and re-fed on another rabbit. In G2, larvae were maintained on rabbits until to the fully fed females dropped. Oviposion, hatchability and life cycle of fed on rabbits were recorded and compared with those fed on cows. Results showed that although the cattle tick is highly specific to cattle, it is possible reared on rabbit in limited scale. The larvae well developed on the same rabbit to nymphs and adults. In G2, a very few adults completed their feeding and laid very small egg mass, some of eggs failed to hatch and a few recorded hatchability percentage not more than 9.1% in comparing 98.3% in females fed on cow. In G1, the rearing technique led to slightly increase the egg mass and their hatchability that reached to 23.6% in comparing with the hatchability recorded in G2.

Rearing of Rhipicephalus annulatus ticks on rabbits for the biological transmission of Anaplasma marginale

“…Infected adult ticks fed on rabbits took a slightly longer time (+26.8 days) than non-infected ticks to complete their life cycle. This finding agrees with that reported by some researchers [ 44 , 45 ], who reared R. decoloratus and R. annulatus ticks on non-infected rabbits. They found that R. annulatus and R. decoloratus larvae and nymphs molt on rabbits, whereas females fed slowly for 5 days without being partially engorged.…”

“…They found that R. annulatus and R. decoloratus larvae and nymphs molt on rabbits, whereas females fed slowly for 5 days without being partially engorged. We calculated the life cycle of R. annulatus on clean rabbits as 71–84 days with a mean of 76.9 days, whereas Abdel-Shafy (2018) calculated the life cycle as 59–82 days with a mean value of 70 days [ 44 ]. Six New Zealand white rabbits were used for rearing R. annulatus .…”

Endogenous Viral Elements in Ixodid Tick Genomes

“…By contrast, the remaining tick genomes encoded between 39 and 97 EVEs. This disparity between tick genomes in EVE numbers and diversity is of particular interest; the two species with the fewest Mononegavirales-derived EVEs (Rhipicephalus annulatus and Rhipicephalus microplus, each with only a single rhabdoviral EVE identified) retained abundant parvoviral EVEs yet are both single-host ticks (all three life stages feed and develop on the same host [39,40]) and thus may have fewer opportunities to acquire viruses from multiple diverse vertebrates than do the other ticks featured in our analysis which utilize three hosts during their life cycle [21,[41][42][43][44][45][46]. The tree is manually rooted on Polydnaviridae.…”