Abstract
Nuttalliella namaqua has been described as a “living fossil” and the closest extant species to the ancestral tick lineage. It was previously proposed that the Nuttalliella lineage parasitized reptile-like mammals in the Permian and had to switch hosts several times due to mass or host lineage extinctions. Extant hosts include girdled lizards and murid rodents. The current study extends knowledge on the extant host range of N. namaqua using gut meal analysis of field collected specimens. Nymphs and females can parasitize a variety of reptiles that includes skinks, geckos and girdled lizards. Blood-meal from a hyrax was also detected in a specimen suggesting that N. namaqua could parasitize a broader range of mammals than the previously suggested murid rodents. Rather than being host specific, N. namaqua is proposed to be a generalist and the ability to switch and parasitize multiple hosts allowed it to survive multiple mass and host lineage extinctions.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Mr. A. van Heerden for permission to search his farm for ticks. Mr. Faansie Peacock (Ditsong National Museum of Natural History) is thanked for access to the Austin Roberts archives of the Barlow Expedition. This project was funded by the Joy Liebenberg Trust (21/19/JT02) allocated to BM, an incentive funding for rated researchers grant from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF-Mans 76499) and a South African National Research Foundation grant allocated to AL (NRF-Spain).
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Mans, B.J., de Klerk, D.G., Pienaar, R. et al. The host preferences of Nuttalliella namaqua (Ixodoidea: Nuttalliellidae): a generalist approach to surviving multiple host-switches. Exp Appl Acarol 62, 233–240 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-013-9737-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-013-9737-z