Reticulinasus salahi (Acarina: Argasidae), an ectoparasite of bats and man in the Palaearctic and Afrotropics: an annotated review of records with the first pathogens detected

Abstract

Abstract The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectoparasites of various bat species of the Afrotropic, Australasian, and Oriental regions. Reticulinasus salahi (Hoogstraal, 1953) is the only representative of the genus that occurs in the western part of the Palaearctic. This unusual distribution reflects the home range of its primary host, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810) from the family Pteropodidae. However, the complete summary of available records and a review of the host species, including re-determination of the originally reported hosts and new records, prove that this parasite occurs also in areas exceeding the distribution range of R. aegyptiacus. Besides the primary host, the occurrence was confirmed also on bats of the families Vespertilionidae and Emballonuridae, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859 and Taphozous perforatus Geoffroy, 1818. Since O. hemprichii and R. aegyptiacus forage in different habitats and also their natural roosts differ, the parasite transfer between them probably happened in a common roost in anthropogenous conditions. On the other hand, in T. perforatus the transfer from the primary host species could be expected in a common underground roost either in natural or artificial conditions. Some of the tick specimens collected from R. aegyptiacus between July 2010 and March 2012 in Jordan and Oman, were tested for pathogen presence. The MHV-68 virus and the bacteria Borellia burgdorferii s.l. were found in the ticks from both countries. In the ticks from Jordan, the presence of Rickettsia slovaca-like was confirmed, and Candidatus Ehrlichia shimanensis in the larva from Oman. The anthropogenous occurrence of R. salahi combined with the existence of its pathogens represents a potential health issue for human visitors of the bat roosts within the distribution range of R. aegyptiacus.