A massive infestation of the long-legged buzzard, Buteo rufinus (Cretzschmar), by Hyalomma marginatum Koch (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks in Türkiye

Abstract

Ticks are obligate blood-sucking ectoparasites of vertebrate animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, and even amphibians. As a suitable host, birds may carry and spread ticks and serve as reservoirs for some tick-borne pathogens. The present study reports an impressive tick infestation on a long-legged buzzard, Buteo rufinus (Cretzschmar), in Türkiye. One hundred fifty-nine engorged nymphal ticks were removed with tweezers from a B. rufinus in the Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation, Training, Practice, and Research Center (AKUREM), Afyon Kocatepe University, Afyonkarahisar province, Türkiye. All ticks were morphologically identified as the Hyalomma marginatum group. For accurate species identification, a molecular study on randomly selected two engorged nymphs was performed through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification of a ~460 bp fragment of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene. Comparing our mitochondrial 16S rRNA sequences with those from the NCBI Genbank database showed that our ticks have a significant genetic similarity over 99% with Hyalomma marginatum Koch. Further, the extracted tick DNAs were also screened for the presence of Rickettsia, Borrelia and Bartonella bacteria targeting the rickettsial citrate synthase (gltA, ~750 bp), flagellin B (flaB, ~659 bp), NADH dehydrogenase gamma subunit (nuoG, ~346) genes, respectively; but samples were negative for these bacteria. To our knowledge, this is the first report of H. marginatum infesting B. rufinus in Türkiye and the first observation of the massive infestation of H. marginatum on B. rufinus.