<p><strong>Ticks of Australia. The species that infest domestic animals and humans</strong></p>

Abstract

The book Australian Ticks by F.H.S. Roberts (1970) is a land-mark in Australian tick biology. But it is time for a new and improved book on the ticks of Australia. The present book has identification guides and accounts of the biology and diseases associated with the 16 species of ticks that may feed on domestic animals and humans in Australia. These comprise five argasid (soft) ticks: Argas persicus (poultry tick), Argas robertsi (Robert's bird tick), Ornithodoros capensis (seabird soft tick), O. gurneyi (kangaroo soft tick), Otobius megnini (spinose ear tick); and 11 ixodid (hard) ticks, Amblyomma triguttatum (ornate kangaroo tick), Bothriocroton auruginans (wombat tick), B. hydrosauri (southern reptile tick), Haemaphysalis bancrofti (wallaby tick), H. longicornis (bush tick), Ixodes cornuatus (southern paralysis tick), I. hirsti (Hirst's marsupial tick), I. holocyclus (paralysis tick), I. tasmani (common marsupial tick), Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) australis (Australian cattle tick) and R. sanguineus (brown dog tick). We use an image-matching system to identify ticks, much like the image-matching systems used in field-guides for birds and flowers. Ticks may be identified by drawings that emphasise unique matrices of uniformly defined morphological characters that, together, allow these 16 ticks to be identified by morphology unequivocally. The species accounts have seven sections: (i) General; (ii) Differential diagnosis; (iii) Hosts; (iv) Life-cycle and seasonality; (v) Disease; (vi) Habitat and geographic distribution; (vii) Genes and genomes; and (viii) Other information. There are 71 figures and tables, including a glossary character matrices, drawings of life-cycles, drawings of genera, species, and colour photographs of tick biology.

Variation among Bm86 sequences in Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus ticks collected from cattle across Thailand

“…Further work is warranted to test this hypothesis with heterologous and homologous challenge infestations to the Bm86 variants associated with reduced vaccine efficacy. (Barker and Walker 2014;Walker et al 2003) collectively prompted comparison of ticks from this investigation to the re-described morphological features of these closely related species (Table 3). According to the available criteria, these comparisons indicated that the female ticks, the source of Bm86 transcript sequences used for this work, were morphologically consistent with R.…”

“…(B.) australis were compared to female and male ticks collected in this study (Barker and Walker 2014;Estrada-Pena et al 2012;Walker et al 2003).…”

Molecular investigation into the presence of a Coxiella sp. in Rhipicephalus sanguineus ticks in Australia

“…Ticks collected from dogs in six remote Aboriginal communities were also included in the present study (Walgett, NSW; Lake Nash, Mutitjulu, Tennant Creek, Yuendumu, NT; Kurrangki, WA; Supplementary Table 1). All ticks were stored in 70% ethanol until required and were identified morphologically using standard keys (Barker and Walker, 2014).…”

Phylogenetic characterisation of two novel Anaplasmataceae from Australian Ixodes holocyclus ticks: ‘Candidatus Neoehrlichia australis' and ‘Candidatus Neoehrlichia arcana'

“…Ticks were placed in 70 % ethanol immediately after removal from hosts or collection from the environment and stored at 4 C until molecular analysis. Ticks were morphologically identified into species, instar and sex using standard keys (Roberts, 1970;Barker & Walker, 2014).…”

“…Ixodes holocyclus is endemic to eastern Australia and is one of the most significant Australian native arthropods from both a medical and veterinary perspective (Barker & Walker, 2014). This is due to its high affinity for parasitizing humans and domestic animals, its high prevalence in densely populated regions of Australia, its ability to cause life-threatening paralysis in domestic animals, and weakness, paralysis, dermatological reactions, mammalian meat allergies and to transmit infections of Rickettsia spp.…”