A look at the world of ticks

Abstract

Ticks are one of the best known groups of parasites. They have accompanied humans and their domestic animals throughout recorded history (Hoogstraal 1970 and subsequent volumes) and have become a major focus of medical and veterinary research, not only because of their direct pathogenic influence on hosts, such as blood loss and tick-induced paralysis (Gothe 1999; Pf€affle et al. 2009), but more importantly because of their role as vectors of a very wide range of viral, bacterial and protozoan diseases (Nicholson et al. 2009). Indeed, ticks are of considerable economic importance as a constraint to animal production in most of the countries where they occur (Jongejan and Uilenberg 2004). Despite this sinister background, ticks are a fascinating, highly successful group, manifesting a wide variety of adaptations to their hosts and the environments in which they live. In this contribution we will present the world of ticks both from the perspective of a biologically highly successful and interesting group and from their dark side as parasites and carriers of diseases