The Persian tick, Argas persicus (Ixodida: Argasidae) in Kalmykia (Russia)

Yatsuk, Aleksandra; Kolesnikov, Vasiliy; Davydova, Yulia; Malovichko, Lubov; Campos-Cerda, Felipe; Matyukhin, Aleksandr

doi:10.22073/pja.v12i2.77948

The Persian tick, Argas persicus (Ixodida: Argasidae) in Kalmykia (Russia)

Document Type : Correspondence

Authors

Aleksandra Yatsuk ¹

Vasiliy Kolesnikov ²

Yulia Davydova ³

Lubov Malovichko ⁴

Felipe Campos-Cerda ⁵

Aleksandr Matyukhin ¹

¹ Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution Leninskij prosp., 33, Moscow, 119071, Russia

² Federal public budgetary scientific institution All-Russian Research Institute of Protection of Plants, VNIISS, Voronezh Region, 396030, Russia

³ Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University named after Kozma Minin Ulyanova st., 1, Nizhny Novgorod, 603950, Russia

⁴ Russian State Agrarian University – RGAU – Moscow State Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev Timiryazevskaya st., 49, Moscow, 127550, Russia

⁵ Laboratorio de Conducta Animal, Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, 04510, México

https://doi.org/10.22073/pja.v12i2.77948

Abstract

The epidemiological significance of ticks of the genus Argas has been known since 1897, as this genus includes at least 61 species of ticks parasitizing birds and bats and is capable of hosting and transmitting several bacterial diseases such as salmonellosis and aegyptianellosis. We present a summary of the monitoring of A. persicus ticks collected from several bird species during 4 years in the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia. Our results show that domestic and wild birds can host high numbers of ticks and their close proximity increases the probability of exchanging ticks. We found that various birds from no migratory species come to contact with poultry during their nesting season and likely exchange ticks with them. Our results show that despite the regular acaricide treatment of farms, tick presence was extremely high with the exception of small sporadic reductions.

Keywords

Argasidae

epidemiological significance

poultry

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