Survey of Species of Ticks Infesting Cattle in Taiwan

Abstract

This is the first systematic survey of tick infestation of cattle in Taiwan with species identification of these ectoparasites by morphology. Cattle in 6 (40%) of the 15 enrolled farms were infested by ticks, and ticks were collected from 133 (4.5%) cattle among the total of 2,950 cattle. A total of 783 ticks were collected, including 714 (91.2%) adults, 64 (8.2%) nymphs, and 5 (0.6%) larvae. Of the 714 adult ticks, 706 (98.9%) were identified as Rhipicephalus microplus and 8 (1.1%) were Rhipicephalus haemaphysaloides. All nymphs end larvae were identified as Rhipicephalus spp. A. microplus was discovered on both beef and dairy cattle, while A. haemaphysaloides was observed only on dairy cows. Cattle grazed on pastures were more likely to be infested by ticks than those in free stall. Farming method was considered as a risk factor of farms, having higher tick prevalence, in Taiwan.