Title

The occurrence of ixodid ticks on wild mink Mustela visonin England and Wales.

Authors

PAGE, R. J. C.; LANGTON, S. D.

Abstract

. Four species of ticks found to infest 1391 American mink (Mustela vison)in Britain in five years were, in declining order of frequency, Ixodes hexagonus, Ixodes canisuga, Ixodes ricinusand Ixodes acuminatus. Ixodes hexagonusand I.canisugaoccurred on 40% and 2.5% of mink respectively. Infestation rates (the proportion of infested mink) of adult females, nymphs and larvae were similar and tended to be lower in summer. The distribution of infestation size (the number of ticks per host) for adult females describes a negative binomial. The mean infestation size of nymphs varied with the sex of the host and was 5.2 for males and 4.2 for females. Mink are competent hosts for /. hexagonus.

Publication

Medical & Veterinary Entomology, 1996, Vol 10, Issue 4, p359

ISSN

0269-283X

Publication type

Academic Journal

DOI

10.1111/j.1365-2915.1996.tb00757.x