Abstract
Artificial tick foci or "rodentaria", infested with ovipositing females or larvae, have furnished new information on D. andersoni biology, and a means of mass production of adults for acaricide and other tests. Both a 1-year and a 2-year life cycle were observed, depending on the date the larvae emerged or were put out. Each year, adult ticks wandered near the soil surface in the fall but did not seek hosts or climb up to questing positions until spring. A tendency for the adult ticks to congregate southwards of the point of dropping of the engorged nymphs was discernible.In a large-scale rodentarium involving 24 runways, with four replicates of each of six species of rodents, by far the largest number of adult ticks was produced by Marmota flaviventris, but on a tick per unit weight of rodent basis, this species was low in the approximate order calculated.Adult ticks were ready to feed in mid-December in one trial, but they were inactive in the rodentarium because soil temperatures under the snow were usually about 0 °C, and activity does not begin until about 5 °C. The cycles observed in the rodentaria and the field indicate that both 1- and 2-year life cycles occur in southern British Columbia at an altitude of about 1000 ft. At higher altitudes and latitudes, a 3-year life cycle with overwintering larvae may occur. About 10% of the ticks marked in their first year of activity in 1964 were active the next spring.Female ticks from both 1-year and 2-year cycles were capable of paralyzing sheep.
Publisher
Canadian Science Publishing
Subject
Animal Science and Zoology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cited by
28 articles.
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