Differential feeding success of two economically important tick species Rhipicephalus warburtoni and Ixodes rubicundus on two sympatric small mammal species Micaelamys namaquensis and Elephantulus myurus

Rodents are recognised as important hosts of ixodid ticks and as reservoirs of tick-borne pathogens across the world. Sympatric insectivores are inconspicuous and often overlooked as hosts of ticks and reservoirs of disease. Elephant shrews or sengis of the order Macroscelidea are small insectivores that often live in sympatry with rodents in South Africa. Sengis are invariably parasitised by large numbers of immature ticks while sympatric rodents are infested with very few. The reason for the difference in tick parasitism rates between these hosts is unknown. While a number of mechanisms are possible, we hypothesised that ticks would exhibit “true host specificity” and as such would only attach and feed successfully on their preferred host. To investigate this, we conducted feeding experiments using two economically important tick species, the brown paralysis tick, Rhipicephalus warburtoni and the Karoo paralysis tick, Ixodes rubicundus using two sympatric small mammal species as potential hosts, the eastern rock sengi, Elephantulus myurus and the Namaqua rock mouse, Micaelamys namaquensis. Ticks attached and fed readily on E.