ARGAS 



INTRCDUCTION 



Six Argas species occxir in the Sudan, Four or possibly five 

 other rare kinds have been recorded elsewhere in Africa, All the 

 Siidan species may bite man, and, except possibly for the bat para- 

 sites, all may cause more or less painfiil sequelae. Insofar as 

 our present knowledge goes, Argas ticks are rarely known to trans- 

 mit human disease. Birds and bats are the chief hosts of most 

 Argas species. The more widely spread species that parasitize 

 domestic fowls are often serious pests and importajit vectors of 

 avian diseases. The bat-infesting species eQ.so range rather widely 

 and may possibly disseminate pathogenic organisms among their hosts, 



Xarval Argas ticks, in contrast to the two well— known African 

 argasids, Ornithodoros moubata and 0, savignyi , are all active, suck 

 blood, and often may be observed feeding on their hosts, Argas 

 nymphs and adults, like those of Ornithodoros , are usxially found 

 only by careful searching in niches and concealed resting places in 

 the immediate habitat of their favorite host. 



Ticks of the genus Argas , unless recently engorged, are usual- 

 ly flatter in profile than Ornithodoros , and can in most instances 

 be easily distinguished from them by the presence of some morpholog. 

 ical differentiation of the peripheral integument of the body, 



Argas ticks are still surprisingly poorly known in most parts 

 of the world and considerably larger collections, more data on their 

 life history, and more exact collecting data are necessary before 

 the biology and systematics of this genus can be finally settled. 



The other species of Argas known to occur in Africa, some of 

 which undoubtedly will be found in the Sudan, are the following; 



A, aequalis (Neumann, 1901) from Tanganyika, The host is iinknoim 



~ and apparently only the original collection is known, OriginaL- 



ly described in the genus Ornithodoros but subsequently referred 



to Argas (Neumann 1908BJ, 



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