Taiga Tick - Ixodes persulcatus Schul.
The taiga tick is one of the ixodid ticks, which are exclusively blood-sucking parasites that feed on the blood of large animals, as well as humans, and live in coniferous forests.
The body of the taiga tick, like all ixodid ticks, is divided into a head, or proboscis, and a body. The head of hungry ticks is directed forward and pointed (wedge-shaped), which creates a streamlined shape and facilitates the movement of ticks in the fur and feathers of their hosts. Adult ticks have 4 pairs of legs. The body length of the female is 3-4 millimeters, and that of the male is 2-3 millimeters. The body is oval, with about 1/3 of its length covered in front by a dense chitinous shield in females, while in males the shield covers the entire body. The shield in both females and males is black, which makes males appear completely black, while the body of hungry females is dark red or reddish-brown.
The body of females consists of soft coverings gathered in folds. During feeding, which lasts 6-10 days for females, these folds unfold, and the coverings grow, resulting in a colossal increase in body volume. After feeding on blood, the body length of the female increases by 7-8 times, and its mass increases by more than 200 times. Ticks feed only on the blood and tissue fluid of their host. This type of parasitism can be called temporary because ticks spend only the feeding period on the host's body and leave it after feeding, living in the external environment.
The period of parasitism occupies only 2-7% of the tick's life cycle, while the rest of the time they are soil-dwelling animals. Let’s trace the life cycle of the taiga tick from the moment the fed female leaves its host.
Ixodid ticks inhabit the soil and plants. Males are usually half the size of females.
Mating of taiga ticks can occur before they reach a host if the sexes meet on vegetation, or directly on the host during the female's feeding period. Male taiga ticks do not feed, although they may occasionally attach to an animal or human for a short time. The range of hosts for adult taiga ticks is very broad — it includes small mammals (mice, voles, squirrels, chipmunks, hedgehogs, ferrets, and others) as well as larger animals (hares, badgers, foxes, wolves, bears, moose, deer, tigers, etc.), as well as domestic animals such as cats, dogs, goats, sheep, and cattle. Occasionally, feeding female taiga ticks are found on ground-foraging birds, but more often, as already mentioned, larvae and nymphs parasitize birds. One female lays 2,000-3,000 eggs, so she ends up covered in this mass. After laying eggs, she dies. About 3 weeks later, larvae begin to hatch from the eggs. Females lay eggs only after feeding on blood.
Ticks can go for a long time without food. They attack humans from trees and from the surface of the soil.
It is very difficult to remove an attached tick from the skin. One should never forcibly pull off such a tick, as the "head" will remain in the skin and cause inflammation, which is much more dangerous than the bite itself. Therefore, it is recommended to lubricate the attached tick with oil: this way, we block its breathing holes, and the tick weakens without air, relaxes its muscles, and falls off.
If the tick is not disturbed, it will suck blood for about a day, resulting in its body volume increasing by about 200 times, reaching the size of a large pea. The most dangerous disease transmitted by blood-sucking ticks is tick-borne encephalitis. The carrier of its pathogens is the taiga tick.
By biting into a person's skin, it introduces the encephalitis pathogens into the blood, which then penetrate the brain, where they multiply and affect it. A person entering the focal area of infection is at risk of contracting the disease. If necessary to visit such areas, vaccinations should not be neglected.
Common in the Northern, Inner Tien Shan, in the territory of the Issyk-Kul basin
Red Book
