Tick Parasitism in Several Japanese Tits in the Zuojia Nature Reserve, Jilin Province, China
Tick Parasitism in Several Japanese Tits in the Zuojia Nature Reserve, Jilin Province, China
Mingju E1,3, Kaiyan Li2, Fangbing Liu1,3, Lumeng Xu1 and Duo Liu1,3*
ABSTRACT
Ticks as highly specialized blood-sucking arthropods have been reported to parasitize birds. However, in Paridae, there are only reported tick parasitism cases in a few species. In May-July 2023, four adult Japanese tits (Parus minor) were found to be parasitized by ticks for the first time in Northeast China. One of the adult hosts was found dead during the incubating period in the nest, and three of the parasitized adult hosts were found while ringing adult birds. All four adult Japanese tits were parasitized by only a single tick each, and the attachment site was under the neck. In addition, the body length and body weight of these four parasitized individuals were higher than the average of those unparasitized individuals. Here, we suggested that one of the original tick species in our study area expanded its host range to include the tits, and the hosts with larger body size are more likely to be parasitized by ticks.
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