I am searching an advice on how long a tick could be find always sticked (not moving on freely) on an animal after its dead?
I think that this is depending of the age of the tick, and the volume of blood they are still in need.
But is it possible to find some ticks still hooked after 3 days, 7 days, Less or more???
I wonder this question especially for big mammals like elephant, but data from other taxa are welcome
All papers or experiemental data are welcome.
Thank you for your suggestions
I read this paper while ago https://lkcnhm.nus.edu.sg/app/uploads/2017/04/sbr2014-253-254.pdf and fascinated with the 1.2 m dead phyton covered with various size ticks. The thick ticks probably wont want to move around finding new host as they looked so stuffed with blood. They may proceed to reproduction (lay eggs), meanwhile the thinner and smaller ones I think stayed for while till the snake's juice sucked dried. Well, that's some scenario I could think of.
An interesting case of a prolonged tick stay on their host is connected with the severe winter time in Russian Siberia and the Far East. During winter months attached females of Dermacentor silvarum were found on deer and elk. This fact is mentioned in my paper (unfortunately in Russian) of 1978 (Materials on ecology of the ixodid ticks in the north of the Amur Region), which is on my page in ResearchGate.
In tropical arid Africa ticks can stay attached on a 200-300 body weight mammal for a few hours after his death, after 6-8 hours you may still find ticks but the majority have detached. In smaller body size mammals this process is much faster
Thank you Igor and Maurizio.
Strong winter is probably very uncommon in Gabon ;-) but this is interesting for European contries too.
Maurizio did you have more detail about your data (photos, paper,...)?
Best
This would be a most interesting topic to learn more about. There are many studies reporting on ticks on road kill animals. If ticks detach quickly after death of the host, this would affect the results seen. I wonder if such studies have considered this..
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