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Concerns about the effect of temperature

Posted by Agustín on 26 Nov 2008 at 07:18 GMT

I have a comment about this interesting paper. By keeping the ticks at such a high temperature overnight, the general effect is to produce a great excitation and questing behaviour. Every tick species will attach at higher rates if kept at higher temperatures. This is basic tick biology. While more ticks would attach if kept at high temperatures, it should be of interest to check if ticks prefer humans. In the experience here, there is not a "control host" (like dogs or laboratory mice) against to which test that the brown dog tick prefers humans at high temperatures.