The life cycle of Hyalomma rufipes (Acari: Ixodidae) under laboratory conditions

Abstract

Biological characteristics of Hyalomma rufipes parasitising on rabbits and sheep were compared under laboratory conditions in Gansu, China. Mature ticks could parasitize both rabbits and sheep, while immature ticks only fed on rabbits successfully. Adults sucked blood on sheep significantly longer than on rabbits (16 and 13 days, respectively). Other adult parasite characteristics fed on the two hosts were similar, including the weight of engorged adult, female daily oviposition, and the weight and amount of the egg mass laid. Those indicated that this tick species showed little host specificity between sheep and rabbits during its adult stage. In total, the life cycle of H. rufipes was completed in an average period of 179 days. The average developmental periods were 59 days for egg incubation, 3 and 21 days for immature tick prefeeding and feeding, 2, 12 and 40 days for adult prefeeding, female preoviposition and oviposition. The longer female fed for engorgement, the shorter preoviposition period of engorged female needed, although when the feeding period was less than 15 days, this relationship was not obvious. The results confirmed the correlation between the weight of the engorged female and the number of eggs laid (r = 0.909). The reproductive efficiency index (REI) and reproductive fitness index (RFI) in females was 10.63 and 7.22, respectively. Engorged nymphs moulting to females were significantly heavier (27.6 ± 0.89 mg) than those moulting to males (22.3 ± 0.52 mg). Males outnumbered females by 1.4:1.

The Influence of Interspecific Competition and Host Preference on the Phylogeography of Two African Ixodid Tick Species

“…To compare the potential effect of the demographic history on diversity estimates of the two tick species, the entire mtDNA data sets for the two species were used respectively to calculate the time since expansion for each. Given τ = 1.056 for A. hebraeum and τ = 0.486 for H. rufipes the time since expansion is 70 400 years ago for A. hebraeum (approximately 1 year of generation time [66]) and 64 800 years ago for H. rufipes (6 months of generation time [67]).…”

Sexual differences in the sialomes of the zebra tick, Rhipicephalus pulchellus

“…However, there are differences in feeding behaviors. For example, female ticks feed on a larger volume of blood as compared to males, and their body weight can increase to more than 100-fold after feeding [8-11]. This is in contrast to males, which rarely engorged to higher than two-fold their body weight.…”

Influence of laboratory animal hosts on the life cycle of Hyalomma marginatum and implications for an in vivo transmission model for Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus

“…These studies involve various animal host species in the laboratory maintenance and biology of: H. aegyptium (Sweatman, 1968; Siroky et al, 2011). H. anatolicum (Snow, 1969; Ghosh and Azhahianambi, 2007; Ahmed et al, 2011), H. dromedarii (Bassal and Hefnawy, 1972), H. excavatum (Rechav, 1968, 1970; Hadani and Rechav, 1970), H. impeltatum (Logan et al, 1989b), H. isaaci (Rau, 1963; Das and Subramanian, 1972), H. lusitanicum (Hueli et al, 1984a; Ouhelli and Pandey, 1984), H. rufipes (Knight et al, 1978; Magano et al, 2000; Chen et al, 2012), and H. truncatum (Rechav and Fielden, 1997; Magano et al, 2000). …”