Observations on the Subgenus 'Argas' (Ixodoidea: Argasidae: 'Argas'). 10. 'A. (A.) africolumbae', N. Sp., A Pretoria Virus-Infected Parasite of Birds in Southern and Eastern Africa.

摘要

Argas (A.) africolumbae, n. sp., is described from wild-caught and laboratory-reared adults and immatures from localities in Transvaal, Republic of South Africa. Other material is from Eastern Province, Kenya. All localities are between 1140 and 1740m altitude. In South Africa specimens were taken from a suburban house with nests of the Cape Rock Pigeon, Columba guinea phaeonota Gray, from a city hospital, from a nestling Bald Ibis, Geronticus calvus (Boddaert), and also from under rock flakes near the nest on the granite outcrop where the ibis was breading. In Kenya, specimens were in and near an old nest of an African Rock Martin, Ptyonoprogne fuligula rufigula (Fischer and Reichenow), in a small hole in a large boulder on a hilltop, and I was from the clothes of an African Woman. The new tick species is closely related to A. (A.) hermanni Audouin, which parasitizes pigeons and other birds in the Palearctic area of the African continent eastward to southern USSR, northern India, and Nepal. The tick sample from the Cape Rock Pigeon was infected by Pretoria virus, a previously unknown member of the Dera Ghazi Khan group of viruses infecting Asia and African argasid and ixodid ticks associated with birds. (Author)