Surveillance of ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) on monitored free-ranging giant anteaters and on road-killed anteaters and armadillos in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Midwestern Brazil

Abstract

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Diversity of rickettsiae in ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) collected from wild vertebrates in part of the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal biomes in Brazil

“…Rhipicephalus microplus is strongly associated with cattle (Nava et al, 2017;Martins et al, 2023), and all the records of parasitism on Subulo gouazoubira, Cerdocyon thous, Puma concolor, and Tapirus terrestris described herein have already been reported previously by other authors. Even though horses are the main host of D. nitens, this parasite has been found in a variety of mammals, including wild carnivores (Labruna et al, 2005b;Guglielmone et al, 2014;Nava et al, 2017).…”

“…As for information about tick species, the largest number of ticks comprising the A. cajennense species complex, represented in Brazil by A. cajennense s.s. and A. sculptum (the vector of R. rickettsii, agent of Brazilian Spotted Fever) (Szabó et al, 2013;Nava et al, 2014;Martins et al, 2016) was expected, given the large numbers of tapirs (n=14), capybaras (n=9) and giant anteaters (n=12), usual hosts for adults and immature stages of A. sculptum (Martins et al, 2016(Martins et al, , 2023. Birds have been recorded as hosts of all the stages of A. sculptum in Brazil (Nava et al, 2017), as reported by Luz et al (2016) in the state of Goiás and observed in this study for A. sculptum nymphs and adult ticks infesting C. cristata in the Cerrado biome.…”

“…Ticks (Acari: Argasidae and Ixodidae) are ectoparasitic arthropods of numerous animal species, while humans are accidental hosts, and one of the most important arthropod vectors of infectious diseases around the world (Anderson & Magnarelli, 2008;Nava et al, 2009;Nogueira et al, 2022). Several studies have focused on ticks and their associations with wildlife in the Central-West region of Brazil (e.g., Aragão, 1936;Aragão & Fonseca, 1961;Szabó et al, 2007;Martins et al, 2011Martins et al, , 2023Soares et al, 2015;Witter et al, 2016;Colle et al, 2020;Serpa et al, 2021), and an understanding of aspects pertaining both to these ectoparasites and to the infectious agents they can transmit to their hosts during hematophagy is extremely important.…”