The degree of plasticization of the alloscutal cuticle of a 'hard' (ixodid) tick, Amblyomma hebraeum, and a 'soft' (argasid) tick, Ornithodoros moubata, was assessed throughout the blood-feeding period. Cuticle viscosity was calculated from rate of creep of cuticle under constant load using a Maxwell model. Feeding-related plasticization (i.e. increased rate of extension under a constant load) ...

Borrelia miyamotoi is distantly related to B. burgdorferi and transmitted by the same hard-body tick species. We report 46 cases of B. miyamotoi infection in humans and compare the frequency and clinical manifestations of this infection with those caused by B. garinii and B. burgdorferi infection. All 46 patients lived in Russia and had influenza-like illness with fever as high as 39.5°C; relap...

A supervised veld-burn in the Sclerocarya caffra/Acacia nigrescens Savanna landscape zone in the south-eastern region of the Kruger National Park was carried out during September 1988. The effect of the fire on the free-living tick population was determined by comparing the numbers of ticks collected by monthly drag-sampling in the burnt zone with those collected in an adjacent unburnt zone ove...

This study aimed to describe the association of Borrelia burgdorferi s.s. with ixodid tick cell lines by flow cytometry and fluorescence and confocal microscopy. Spirochetes were stained with a fluorescent membrane marker (PKH67 or PKH26), inoculated into 8 different tick cell lines and incubated at 30°C for 24 h. PKH efficiently stained B. burgdorferi without affecting bacterial viability or m...

The objective of this study was to determine the species and distribution of ticks infesting domestic dogs in southern Mozambique. To this end 89 collections were taken from dogs and the geographic coordinates of the localities at which they were made noted. Fifty-eight of these collections were from animals in the city of Maputo and 16 from animals at rural settlements close to Maputo. A furth...

Four species of ticks were retrieved from burrows of 64 multimammate rats, Mastomys erythroleucus (Temminck), 55-gerbils, Taterillus gracilis (Thomas) or T. pygargus (Cuvier), 13 Nile rats, Arvicanthis niloticus (DeMarest), and five Geoffroy's ground squirrels, Xerus erythropus (Geoffroy) from May 1987 through August 1988 at two study sites in northern Senegal. Ornithodoros sonrai Sautet & Witk...

The south of Western Siberia traditionally belongs to the regions with unfavorable epidemiological situation for tick-transmitted infections. In Novosibirsk and its suburbs, approximately 20 thousand people annually seek medical care after tick bites. purpose this work was determine human-attacking species composition in territory suburbs by identifying nucleotide sequence mitochondrial gene cy...

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 l...

A high prevalence of infection with Borrelia burgdorferi in ixodid ticks is correlated with a high incidence of Lyme disease. The transmission of B. burgdorferi to humans can be disrupted by targeting 2 key elements in its enzootic cycle: the reservoir host and the tick vector. In a prospective 5-year field trial, we show that oral vaccination of wild white-footed mice resulted in outer surface...