caucsLsia, these authors say H. excavatTmi falls in group in which 

 the "upper limit of distribution is inversely pro- 

 portionate to the moisture of the climate and to the amount of 

 rainfall and directly proportionate to the height of the snow 

 line during the summer period" . 



In Armenia, H. excavatum (= H. savignyi armenorium ) is found 

 in pasture at 65C5D feet elevation^and higher tLototsky and Popov 

 193^-) . D\aring the present stiidy it has been found at similar 

 heights in Sinai, Yemen, Anatolia, and Eritrea. 



Feeding Sites and Reactions 



Adults feed on cattle chiefly on the scrotum and perinevnn 

 and in the inguinal and axillary areas. Nymphs generally feed 

 on the neck, chiefly along its crest. Larvae are not commonly 

 found on Egyptian cattle. 



Note ; The following section is ancillary to further remarks 

 on the "subgenus Hyalommina " (page 



In Egypt (Hoogstraal, ms.), larvae and nymphs of H. excavattnn 

 are frequently fotmd completely overgrown by rodent ho'st skin. 

 This phenomenon is especially common among yovmg jirds, Meriones 

 shawi shawi Duvernoy, and sometimes on yoimg fat sandrats, Psammo - 

 mys o. obesus , on the Mediterranean littoral. During springtime 

 almost every nestling jird in the vicinity of Mersa Matruh is 

 infested in this manner. The ticks can be detected by lumps under 

 the skin, most frequently around the neck, axillary areas, shoul- 

 ders, and flanks. Some of these rodents have as many as 22 im- 

 mature ticks under the skin. The host skin may partially or 

 completely enclose the ticks*, which are almost always misshapen 

 when removed. Some nymphs extricated from under the skin of 

 jirds have molted to adults in oxir laboratories. They have in- 

 variably been tiny, weak, misshapen, poorly developed, pale spec- 

 imens, which, if identified according to criteria offered by 

 Schulze (1919), would be H. rhipicephaloides Neumann, 1901, in 

 the subgenus Hyalommina . ~ 



*Nuttall (19HB) has quite accurately described this processes as 

 an oedematous swelling of the host skin, as a result of irritation 

 when the long mouthparts of Ixodes (and Hyalomma ) ticks reach firm 

 subcutaneous connective tissvie; the oedematous swelling may gradual- 

 ly engulf the feeding tick. 



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