TICKS

Dr. Norhidayu Sahimin

Tropical Infectious Diseases Research
and Education Centre (TIDREC),
Universiti Malaya
[email protected]
Introduction
✓ Ticks are bloodsucking, external parasites

✓ Ticks are not insect

✓ 8 legs,2 body segment
✓ 4 life stages, consist of egg, larva, nymph and adult.

✓ Habitat:
✓ sufficiently high humidity (for the ticks to maintain
water balance).
✓ suitable concentration and variety of hosts for each
parasitic stage of tick.
✓ larva -small mammals
✓ nymph -small & medium-sized mammals
✓ adult -large & medium sized mammals and human

✓ 2 types of ticks ;
✓ soft tick
✓ hard tick
Soft Ticks

Scientific classification
Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Arthropoda
Class : Arachnida
Order : Acarina
Famili : Agarasidae
Genus : Ornithodorus
Spesis : moubata

✓ The head are not visible from above and no sexual difference.
✓ Mating occur off hosts
✓ Life cycle two months to 5 years or more
✓ Host : any vertebrate
✓ Vector of spirochetes(Borrelia),virus (Rickettsia)
Hard Ticks

Scientific classification:
Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Arthropoda
Class : Arachnida
Order : Acarina
Famili : Ixodidae

•Present of scutellum and head visible from above.

•Sexual differences obvious,
-male with large scutum,
-female with small scutum.

•One host tick- eg. Boophilus annulatus feeding and maturation

on one animal.
•Two host tick- eg. Rhipicephalus
•Three host tick eg. Dermacentor andersoni, Ixodes dammini
 Morphology
Ticks are wingless and possess a single, oval body region that is relatively flat (except
when filled with blood)
Adults and nymphs have eight legs; larvae have only six legs
The so-called "head" of a tick includes structures involved in feeding, together known
as the capitulum."
It consists of a pair of leg-like sensory structures known as "palps" that enable the tick
to detect an approaching host
A pair of knife-like structures known as "chelicerae" that cut an opening in the host
skin, and a single barbed structure known as a "hypostome" that enters this opening
The hypostome becomes anchored in the host flesh when the tick takes a blood meal.\
Tick mouth parts bring about more or less deep hollows in the host's skin, which
become filled by blood of ruptured blood vessels.
Life Cycle
i) The Egg
Life Cycle
▪Mating of hard ticks usually occurs while they are on the host animal.
▪Afterwards the female drops to the ground and, after a brief pre-oviposition period of three to 10 days,
begins to deposit eggs on or near the earth.
▪The female hard tick feeds once, lays one large batch of eggs sometimes numbering in the thousands,
and dies.
▪Most of the soft ticks engorge with blood several times and deposit about 20-50 eggs in a batch after
each blood meal.
▪Eggs will hatch in two weeks to several months, depending upon temperature, humidity and other
environmental factors.

ii) The Larva

▪The larvae, or "seed ticks," have only six legs, and the sexes are, indistinguishable. Their chances of
attaching to a host are precarious sometimes resulting in prolonged fasts.
▪After a blood meal, the engorged larvae usually drop to the soil and molt to the eight-legged nymph
stage. The larvae of one-host ticks remain on the host to molt.

iii) The Nymph

▪The nymph has eight legs like the adult but has no genital opening.
▪After engorgement, the nymph drops from the host, molts, and becomes an adult.
▪Nymphs may rest for long periods before becoming adults.
▪Some species of hard ticks live less than one year while others live three years or more.
▪Each time a tick leaves its host it risks its survival on finding another host.
▪Some species have the advantage of molting on the host. For example, the cattle tick is a one-host tick
▪Multiple-host tick species are able to exist because of their great reproductive capacity and their ability
to survive for a long time without food.
▪Hard ticks have only one nymphal instar, the nymph becoming an adult after molting. Soft ticks may have
several nymphal instars.
iv) The Adult

▪Typically, the nymph molts after engorgement and becomes an adult.

▪Sex then is distinguishable for the first time as the female hard tick differs from the male in
having a small scutum.
▪The sex of soft ticks may be determined by the shape of the genital opening located between
the second pair of legs.
▪In male soft ticks the genital opening is almost circular, while it is oval and definitely broader
than long in female specimens.
▪Unlike mosquitoes, both male and female hard ticks are bloodsuckers, and both require several
days of feeding before copulation.
▪After the male hard tick becomes engorged, he usually copulates with one or more females
and then dies.
▪Following copulation, the female tick drops to the ground. The eggs require several days to
develop.
▪Then she begins oviposition.
▪After a few more days, her life's mission accomplished, the spent female hard tick also dies.
▪The female soft tick may lay several small batches of eggs but she requires another blood meal
before each episode of oviposition.
HARDLife Cycle
TICK’s life cycle

Hard ticks have a variety of life histories with respect to optimizing their chance of
contact with an appropriate host to ensure survival.

*one host ticks

-feed on only one host throughout all three life stages
-remains on one host during the larval and nymphal stages, until they become
adults, and females drop off the host after feeding to lay their batch of eggs.
*two host ticks
-feed on two hosts during their lives
-feeds and remains on the first host during the larval and nymphal life stages, and
then drops off and attaches to a different host as an adult for its final blood meal.
-The adult female then drops off after feeding to lay eggs.
*three host ticks
-feed on three hosts
-drop off and reattach to a new host during each life stage, until finally the adult
females lay their batch of eggs.
-In each case, the fed adult stage is terminal, that is, after laying one batch of eggs
the female dies, and after the male has reproduced, he dies as well.
One Host Tick Lifecycle Two Host Tick Lifecycle

Three Host Tick Lifecycle

SOFT TICK’s life cycle

•The life stages of soft ticks are not readily distinguishable.

•The first life stage to come out of the egg, a six legged larva, takes a blood meal
from a host, and molts to the first nymphal stage.

•Unlike hard ticks, many soft ticks go through multiple nymphal stages, gradually
increasing in size until the final molt to the adult stage.

•Some soft ticks pass through up to seven nymphal molts before they become
adults.

•Soft ticks feed several times during each life stage, and females lay multiple small
batches of eggs between blood meals during their lives.

•The time to completion of the entire life cycle is generally much longer than that of
hard ticks, lasting over several years.

•Additionally, many soft ticks have an uncanny resistance to starvation, and can
survive for many years without a blood meal (Furman and Loomis 1984).
Prevention & Control

Wear protective clothing such as long-sleeved shirts, long trousers,

boots or sturdy shoes and a head covering. (Ticks are easier to detect
on light-colored clothing.) Tuck trouser cuffs in socks. Tape the area
where pants and socks meet so ticks cannot crawl under clothing.
Apply insect repellent containing DEET primarily to clothes. Apply
repellents sparingly to exposed skin. Do not apply to the face.
Stay away from known tick-infested areas.
All clothing should be removed on returning home and placed into a
hot dryer for 20 minutes, which will kill any ticks that may still be on
the clothing
Used pesticides like DDT, Malathion, Carbaryl (Sevin), Diazinon
insecticides and etc.
The most efficient treatment is by applying lotion cream, oil or
cigarette ashes at the point area so that the ticks will be removed.
Clean the bite site with rubbing alcohol and apply antibiotic
ointment.
 Distribution

Approximate distribution of the lone star tick Approximate distribution of the blacklegged tick

Approximate distribution of the western blacklegged tick

Medical Importance

Soft Tick

a) Tick-Borne Relapsing Fever

•Causative agent: spirochetes of Borrelia duttoni, Borrelia
turicatae, Borrelia parkeri and Borrelia hermsii
•Vector: Ornithodorus moubata
•Transmission: via bite and coxsal fluid

b) Q fever (Querry fever)

Common Fowl Tick Argas radiatus Raillet
known also as the chicken tick and the "blue bug"
common in poultry houses in the southern and
southwestern U.S. It may injure or even kill chickens, and
may attack humans.
Medical Importance
Hard Tick

a) Lyme Disease (America)

-Causative agent: spirochete of Borrelia burgdorferi
-Vectors: nymphs of Ixodes scapularis, adults of Ixodes pacificus
-Transmission: via bite and transstadial transmission
-Symptoms of infection:
Initial symptoms –
flu-like, usually with a characteristic reddish "bulls eye" rash
at the site of inoculation.
Subsequent symptoms –
neurological complications such as body pain, encephalitis,
Bell's Palsy and irregular heartbeat.
Chronic symptoms –
arthritis, especially in knees, and neurological complications
such as body pain, loss of motor skill and chronic fatigue
Medical Importance

b) Tick Paralysis
-Causative agent: toxins in tick saliva
-Vector: Ixodes holocyclus
-Transmission: via the bite of a female adult tick
-Symptoms of infection:
unsteady gait, increased weakness of the limbs,
multiple rashes, headache, fever, flu like symptoms,
tenderness of lymph nodes, and partial facial
paralysis.

c) Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

-Causative agent: toxins in tick saliva
-Vectors: Dermacentor variabilis, American dog tick
(eastern US) and Dermacentor andersoni, Rocky
Mountain wood tick (western US).
Medical Importance

d) Tick Typhus
-Causative agent: Rickettsia (bacteria-like organism)
-Vectors: native animals
-Symptoms of infection:
headaches, multiple rashes, swollen glands, fever and flu
like symptoms

e) Arbovirus
-Russian Spring-Summer Encephalitis (RSSE)
-Omsk fever
-Kyasamur forest diseases (KFD)
-Langat Encephalitis