“…ASF is believed to have evolved in a sylvatic cycle that occurs in eastern and southern Africa between common warthogs ( Phacochoerus africanus ) and argasid ticks of the Ornithodoros moubata complex that share their burrows (Plowright, Thomson, & Neser, ). Since the middle of the last century, introduction of the disease into new areas (West Africa, Europe, the Caucasus, the Caribbean and Brazil) has demonstrated that, unless drastic measures are implemented to eradicate ASF, it can be maintained and efficiently spread by domestic pigs and can become endemic in the absence of African wild suids or ticks (Arias & Sánchez‐Vizcaíno, ; Brown, Penrith, Fasina, & Beltrán‐Alcrudo, ; Gogin, Gerasimov, Malogolovkin, & Kolbasov, ; Moura, McManus, Bernal, & de Melo, ; Mur et al., ). Nevertheless, the well‐documented sylvatic cycle between warthogs and soft ticks, which is often incorrectly extrapolated to include other wild suid species, has resulted in an indelible impression that wild suids are still the major player in ASF transmission in Africa.…”