The objective of this study was to assess the host status of the three largest southern African wild ruminants, namely giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis, African buffaloes, Syncerus caffer, and eland, Taurotragus oryx for ixodid ticks. To this end recently acquired unpublished data are added here to already published findings on the tick burdens of these animals, and the total numbers and specie...

Diadromus pulchellus Wesmael (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) is a pupal parasitoid under consideration for introduction into Canada for the control of the invasive leek moth, Acrolepiopsis assectella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Acrolepiidae). Since study of the parasitoid outside of quarantine was not permitted in Canada at the time of this project, we assessed its efficacy via field trials in its nati...

The pollination and breeding strategies of two Abrus species (A. precatorius L. and A. pulchellus Wall. ex Thw.) were comparatively investigated in Nigeria, West Africa. Observations were made on the phenology, floral morphology and architecture, breeding and pollination system, as well as flower-insect interactions. During 1999–2000, Abrus precatorius was observed to flower twice a year (April...

The purpose of this study was to determine the species spectrum of ticks infesting goats owned by resource-limited farmers in the state-owned communal land areas of Zimbabwe. Ticks were collected from goats at a single locality within each of 5 communal land areas, and a total of 14 ixodid tick species was recovered. The most numerous tick was Rhipicephalus evertsi evertsi, which was present in...

Gamasiphis ochotensis sp. n. is described based on the morphology of females and males collected from litter and soil in the Sakhalin and Kuril Islands of Far East Russia. A key for the separation of females of 10 recognisable species of Gamasiphis distributed in Asia is provided.

C-banding pattern and Ag-NORs on chromosomes of Trechus latus, T pilisensis T pulchellus, and T quadristriatus are presented. T pulchellus has a paracentromeric C-band similar in size on all chromosomes. T latus has euchromatic the X chromosome but all autosomes have a paracentromeric C-positive band. In the karyoty}l' of T quadristriatus the 1st pair of autosomes is euchromatic while the autos...

Despite the large number of collection records, there are no recent collections of ixodid ticks of this magnitude in the Waterberg area, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Free-living ticks on a commercial game farm were obtained by a total of 432 drag-samples in eight sample sites from September 2003 to August 2008. The ticks were collected to establish the difference between tick species and den...

A total of 264 scrub hares (Lepus saxatilis) were examined for ixodid ticks at various localities in the Kruger National Park, eastern Transvaal Lowveld. Thirteen tick species were recovered from these hares. The seasonal abundances of the immature stages of Amblyomma hebraeum, Amblyomma marmoreum, Hyalomma truncatum, Rhipicephalus appendiculatus, Rhipicephalus evertsi evertsi, Rhipicephalus si...