Predominancy of
Rhipicephalus turanicus in Tick-infested Sheep from Turkey: a
Large-scale Survey
Onur Ceylan1,
Ali Uslu2, Ceylan Ceylan1 and Ferda Sevinc1*
1Selcuk
University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of
Parasitology, Konya-Turkey
2Selcuk
University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of
Microbiology, Konya-Turkey
*Corresponding author:
fsevinc@selcuk.edu.tr
Abstract
Ticks are obligatory blood-sucking ectoparasites
of a wide variety of animals, and they cause economic losses in livestock
breeding by acting as vectors of some bacterial, protozoan and viral pathogens.
In the current study, tick-infested sheep was investigated. For this purpose,
4115 sheep from all provinces of Turkey were examined for tick infestation. A
total of 1575 adult ticks were collected from 24 different provinces between
April and October 2017. Tick infestation rate was determined as 8.8% (n: 362).
No argasid ticks were encountered among the collected ticks. Six tick species
were morphologically identified belong to Ixodidae, namely as
Rhipicephalus turanicus (90.86%),
Rhipicephalus bursa (4.32%),
Rhipicephalus sanguineus (0.19%),
Hyalomma excavatum (4.32%),
Hyalomma marginatum (0.25%) and
Dermacentor marginatus (0.06%). This
study reveals that Rh. turanicus is
more abundant than the other species causing infestations in sheep, and reports
the tick infestation in sheep for the first time in some provinces (Antalya,
Ardahan, Aydın, Batman, Bursa, Denizli, Isparta, İzmir, Kahramanmaraş, Kırşehir,
Manisa, Muğla, Nevşehir, Uşak, Yalova ve Yozgat) of the country.
To Cite This Article:
Ceylan O, Uslu A, Ceylan C and Sevinc F, 2021.
Predominancy of Rhipicephalus turanicus
in tick-infested sheep from turkey: a large-scale survey. Pak Vet J,
41(3): 429-433. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2021.036