The Subgenus Persicargas (Ixodoidea: Argasidae: Argas) 20. A. (P.) robertsi parasitizing nesting wading birds and domestic chickens in the Australian and Oriental Regions, viral infections, and host migration

Abstract

Abstract: Study of about 10,000 ticks, chiefly from arboreal bird rookeries in Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and Taiwan, shows that all represent Argas (Persicargas) robertsi Hoogstraal, Kaiser & Kohls. This species, originally described from domestic chicken houses in Queensland, Australia, is the Australian-Oriental counterpart of A. (P.) atloreus Kaieer, Hoogstraal & Kohls, which parasitizes the same and similar genera and species of wild birds through much of Africa (Ethiopian Faunal Region and Mediterranean Subregion of the Palearctic). Birds commonly inhabiting robertsi-infested rookeries are cormorants (Phalacrocorax), herons (Ardea, Ardeola, Bubulcus, Njcticorax), egrets (Egretta), the Open-billed Stork (Anastomus), and ibises (Threskiornis, Plegadis). Other birds, domestic chicken houses, a lighthouse beacon, and humans in rookeriss and in laboratories are also sources of specimens. Enormous populations of this parasite develop in rookeries inhabited by numerous birds whose migratory habits contribute to the wide dispersal of the ticks and their characteristic viruses. Tickborne viruses isolated from A. (P.) robertsi samples reported here are Kao Shuan (Taiwan, Java, Australia) and Pathum Thani (Thailand, Sri Lanka), both in the Dera Ghazi Khan group, and Nyamanini (Thailand, Sri Lanka), ungrouped. In Australia, A. (P.) persicus (Oken) was found in nests of galahs, Kakatoe roseicapilla; these are the only authentic records known to us of wild bird hosts of this cosmopolitan fowl tick outside its Central Asiar homeland.