1937,19^2). MADAGASCAR: Introduced but not known to be established. 

 Hoogstraal (1953E)_7 



HOSTS 



All authors who mention hosts and Theiler (correspondence) 

 state that horses are most commonly attacked and, to a lesser ex- 

 tent, cattle and sheep. Wild hosts have not been reported. 



BIOLOGY 



Life Cycle 



This tick has not been reared in the laboratory but Lounsbury 

 and Howard have observed that it is a single host tick that required 

 from 186 to 201 days "from adults to hatching of larvae" at Cape- 

 town. This winter tick probably undergoes only a single generation 

 annually. 



Ecology 



Veld horses become very badly covered during winter but few 

 of these ticks are seen in summer (Howard 1908). Eighty percent 

 of available records for M. vinthemi are for winter months. May 

 to August. This species ^oes not occur in warm or in moist areas 

 but is found, frequently at high altitudes, in many localities 

 having more than ninety days of frost and less than thirty inches 

 of annual rainfall (Theiler and Salisbury 1956). 



REMAEKS 



M. winthemi and M. reidi sp. nov. are the only species des- 

 cribee! in tkLs genus." TTI^T^ccur in widely separated, restricted 

 areas of Africa, within the Ethiopian Faunal Region, and differ 

 considerably in ecological requirements. It is of interest that 

 M. winthemi has been collected only from horses and other domestic 

 animals arS M. reidi sp. nov. only from giraffes. 



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