Ramos Vanessa do Nascimento, Osava Carolina Fonseca, Piovezan Ubiratan, Szabó Matias Pablo Juan
Laboratório de Ixodologia, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia,Av. Pará, 1720/Campus Umuarama-Bloco 2T, CEP 38400-902, Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária - Embrapa Pantanal, Rua 21 de Setembro, n° 1.880, Bairro Nossa Senhora de Fátima, Caixa postal 109, CEP 79320-900, Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
Ticks Tick Borne Dis. 2017 Jun;8(4):506-510. doi: 10.1016/j.ttbdis.2017.02.011. Epub 2017 Feb 27.
We herein describe the ambush behavior of Amblyomma sculptum (Berlese 1888), a widespread and epidemiologically important tick in Brazil. Along two years of sampling by visual search in the Brazilian Pantanal, A. sculptum ticks were observed on the vegetation and in the leaf litter. Most of the ticks were observed between 10 and 50cm above ground level and less than five percent of the total were positioned below 10cm, indicating that they are seeking for middle or large-sized hosts. In both seasons, vapor saturation deficit was low during the morning. No significant relationship was found between questing ticks and daytime interval of observation or saturation deficit. However, questing tick numbers seem be higher in the end of the morning, when saturation deficit reaches its peak. Behavioral patterns of A. sculptum ticks observed in Pantanal underscore the occurrence of this tick and human contact at green anthropogenic sites. Considering A. sculptum questing behavior, inferences on human behavioral patterns that enhance or avoid contact with ticks are discussed.
我们在此描述了刻纹硬蜱（Amblyomma sculptum，Berlese 1888）的伏击行为，它是巴西一种分布广泛且在流行病学上具有重要意义的蜱虫。在巴西潘塔纳尔湿地进行了为期两年的视觉搜索采样过程中，在植被和落叶层中发现了刻纹硬蜱。大多数蜱虫是在离地面10至50厘米处被发现的，总数中不到5%位于10厘米以下，这表明它们在寻找中型或大型宿主。在两个季节中，早晨的水汽饱和亏缺都较低。在搜寻到的蜱虫与日间观察时段或饱和亏缺之间未发现显著关系。然而，当饱和亏缺达到峰值时，早晨快结束时搜寻到的蜱虫数量似乎更多。在潘塔纳尔湿地观察到的刻纹硬蜱的行为模式突显了这种蜱虫在绿色人为场所与人类接触的情况。考虑到刻纹硬蜱的搜寻行为，我们讨论了关于人类行为模式对与蜱虫接触增加或避免的影响的推断。
