Ixodes angustus Neumann, 1899

Ixodes angustus Neumann, 1899: 136.

Recorded hosts.

Mammalia: Alexandromys oeconomus (tundra vole), Craseomys rufocanus (grey red-backed vole), Eutamias sibiricus (Siberian chipmunk), Mus musculus (house mouse), Myodes rutilus (northern red-backed vole), Ochotona alpina (alpine pika), Rattus norvegicus (brown rat), Sicista caudata Thomas (long-tailed birch mouse), Sorex araneus (common shrew), Sorex minutus (Eurasian pygmy shrew) (Filippova 1977).

Recorded locations

(Fig. 18). Russia: outskirts of Magadan and the lower reaches of the Kukhtui River, Okhotsky district – the northernmost points of record of I. angustus in the Palearctic (Belyaev 1963); Kamchatka Peninsula – outskirts of the villages Tigil and Ust-Khayryuzovo (Pomerantsev 1950), the valley of the Kamchatka River to Ust-Kamchatsk (Serdjukova 1956), the eastern coast of the Kamchatka peninsula to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (Speranskaya 1958), the valley of the rivers Avacha and Pinachevskaya (Paramonov et al. 1966); Middle Outer Manchuria (Filippova 1977); Sovetsko-Gavansky district (Emelyanova and Koshkin 1962); Sikhote-Alin (Belyaev and Filippova 1976); Sakhalin – Novoaleksandrovka (former Konuma), the valley of the Lyutoga River (Pomerantsev 1950) and the Cape Patience (Skrynnik 1950; Asanuma 1951; Violovich 1958, 1960; Savitsky and Okuntsova 1967; Timofeeva and Kon’kova 1971); Kuril Islands – Simushir (Pomerantsev 1950; Violovich 1958, 1960; Timofeeva and Kon’kova 1971).

Ecology and other information.

Ixodes angustus occurs in the Palearctic predominantly on the East Asian coast and also in the Nearctic – Canada and the USA (Filippova 1977). In the Russian Far East in Outer Manchuria, the islands and along the main ridges of the Sikhote-Alin it inhabits a wide range of biotopes: various types of mixed and broad-leaved forests in mountains and valleys, as well as tundra and rocks, stone outcrops, coastal biotopes, meadow and river valleys (Speranskaya 1958; Violovich 1958; Emelyanova and Koshkin 1962; Belyaev 1963; Paramonov et al. 1966; Savitsky and Okuntsova 1967; Belyaev and Filippova 1976).

Ixodes angustus is considered a nidicolous ectoparasite of rodents and shrews because it was found not only on hosts but also in their burrows (Filippova 1977), although there are documented cases on this species biting humans without contacts with burrows (Cooley 1946). As a parasite which is connected with rodents, and, like other rodent ticks, I. angustus plays a role in supporting natural foci of tick-borne infections such as anaplasmosis (Yamborko and Eremeeva 2014) and the Lyme disease (Peavey et al. 2000).

Although hyperparasitism is not common in Ixodes ticks, I. angustus belongs to a small number of species of the genus, in which this phenomenon was recorded (Durden et al. 2018), when a male was feeding from a female attached to a red squirrel Tamiasciurus hudsonicus . The other Ixodes species in which males have been recorded to attach and feed on engorging conspecific females include I. holocyclus in Australia and I. pilosus in South Africa (Oliver et al. 1986).