Domestic Maimnal Hosts 



Howell, Stiles, and Moe (19A-3) believe that A, persicus may 

 feed on cattle ncre coraraonly than is generally suspected but 

 reasons for this assumption are not presented. This tick has been 

 vaguely reported from Persian animals (Alviimov 1935) and, on the 

 basis of a museum specimen label, from cattle in the Congo (Schwetz 

 1927B), Hoffman (1930), apparently from personal information, sta- 

 ted that in Mexico A. persicvis may bite animals and man in the ab. 

 sence of fowls. In~the United Provinces of India, Sen (1938) 

 listed this species '"off dog"". Various workers have reported that 

 they were unable to induce the fowl argas to feed on laboratory or 

 domestic animals, or, if some blood was taken, the meal was only 

 a partial one. 



Human Hosts 



Authentic records of A. persicus attacking man in almost all 

 instances stress the infreqviency of such experiences. Reports in 

 certain textbooks of nedical entomology that the fowl tick is an 



important pest of man or even '"a veritable scourge in the 



Sudan and South Africa'" (I) are without the slightest foundation 

 (see below). 



In the Svidan, King (1926) reported, A. persicus rarely bites 

 man. Several nymphs and adults in Sudan Government collections 

 are labelled '»from Yemenese man, Suakin, 7-3-09, 0. Atkey". The 

 inference is that the specimens were taken on the person. The 

 numerovis Kosti specimens already mentioned in Sudan records arouse 

 suspicion that this species have been a pest in houses there at 

 one time. My own inquiries in many parts of the Sxidan and from 

 reading a considerable number of travel, medical, and natural 

 history reports of the Sudan have failed to reveal any indication 

 that A. persicus is known as a human pest anywhere in the Sudan. 



In South Africa, Bedford (1934-) wrote, A. persici:is seldom at- 

 tacks man, Lounsbury (19003,19038) recorded~a severe bite on a 

 person in Graaff-Re inert, and stated that he had heard of two other 

 persons who were bitten, but, especially in the former paper, he 

 minimized the importance of A. persicus as a pest of people, as did 

 Behr (1899) for California. "Howard (1909C), however, heard of a 

 South African cart that had been stored in an old infested chicken 

 house; '"no one was able to ride in it afterwards'*. In Southern 

 Rhodesia, A. persicus is pre-eminently a fowl parasite (Jack 1921), 



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