Haemaphysalis concinna is a common rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

 tick

Tick

Ticks are small arachnids in the order Ixodida, along with mites, constitute the subclass Acarina. Ticks are ectoparasites , living by hematophagy on the blood of mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians...

 species that originally predominantly occurred in Russia and Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, but is also known from Japan, China, Germany and France.

It is known to act as a disease vector.

Description

Females reach a length of three to four mm, but can grow up to ten mm when engorged; males are about three mm long. An unfed nymph is under two mm long. There are more males than females.

Development

All three stages target different hosts, the eggs are laid on the ground. They mate on their host around April.

Feeding behavior

Nymphs and larvae feed on small mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s such as rodents or hedgehog

Hedgehog

A hedgehog is any of the spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae and the order Erinaceomorpha. There are 17 species of hedgehog in five genera, found through parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and New Zealand . There are no hedgehogs native to Australia, and no living species native to the Americas...

s, or on birds, reptiles, and human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

s. Adults prefer larger mammals, ranging from cats to horses, again including humans.

Diseases

H. concinna can act as a vector for Francisella tularensis

Francisella tularensis

Francisella tularensis is a pathogenic species of gram-negative bacteria and the causative agent of tularemia or rabbit fever. It is a facultative intracellular bacterium....

(tularaemia), Rickettsia sibirica

Rickettsia sibirica

Rickettsia sibirica is a species of Rickettsia. This bacterium is the etiologic agent of North Asian tick typhus, which is also known as Siberian tick typhus. The ticks that transmit it are primarily various species of Dermacentor and Haemaphysalis....

(Siberian tick typhus), Virus of Russian spring-summer encephalitis (RSSE) and tick borne encephalitis (TBE).

External links

• Systematik von Zecken: List of all described Haemaphysalis species
• Tick Identification Key: Identification of adults in genus Haemaphysalis