[OHIOBWG] Got Bat Ticks?

[Titchenell, Marne]

Hello OWBG Members,

I received a request this week from a PhD candidate studying bat ticks. He is in need of bat ticks. See his request below and please reach out to him if you think you can help.

Much thanks!
Marne




Hello,



I write you in the hopes that your interaction with bats can help me study their parasites. I am a PhD student at the Center for Vector Biology at Rutgers studying ticks on bats. In the northeast US, the most common bat tick is called Carios kelleyi.

Carios kelleyi is what is called a "soft tick" and is unlike the ticks you may encounter in the field such as American dog ticks or deer ticks, which are called "hard ticks."

The bat tick likes to remain in the roost of the bat and comes out of its hiding spot to feed when it gets hungry (and when bats are present, of course). After feeding for a few minutes to an hour, the tick retreats back into its cracks and crevices, slowly digesting its blood meal. They do not feed for days like hard ticks. However, the larval stage of the bat tick will remain attached to the bat for days - even weeks - just like hard ticks. And because of this, larval ticks are the stage of bat tick most frequently encountered by bat rehabilitators and bat researchers.



Furthermore, humans can also "encounter" bat ticks when bats are removed from roosts such as attics. There are published reports of people being bitten by bat ticks when the ticks have no other hosts to feed on.



My major goal is to test these bat ticks for pathogens. There are published reports of Carios kelleyi carrying Rickettsia, Borrelia and Bartonella. Scientists do not know if these bacteria harm the bats or not. But before studies like that take place, we need take a snapshot and see what percentage of bat ticks carry these pathogens. This is where you come in.



I need your ticks! If you find any ticks on your bats, remove them with a fine pair of forceps by getting as close to the skin as possible and gently remove the tick. Please place the ticks in a vial (one bat per vial), add a small amount of alcohol and ship them to me. (You can add multiple ticks from an individual bat into one vial.)

For each collection (one bat is a collection) I need the date, species of bat and location where the bat was found.



This is the first study of its kind and I hope we are successful in identifying bacterial pathogens in bat ticks across the northeast.



If you have any questions, you can email me at james.occi at rutgers.edu or call my cell at 908- 337-3946. And if you are less than a 2-hour drive from my home, I may come to you to pick the ticks up!



Below I have included a photo of what these ticks look like. These specimens are from a big brown bat from New Jersey found in 2019. The ruler is in mm.

I genuinely appreciate your help in this matter and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jim Occi

5 Hemlock Circle

Cranford, New Jersey 07016

james.occi at rutgers.edu

908-337-3946



PS - All participants will be kept informed on what their ticks have been found to carry.
PSS - Feel free to include any "bugs" you find on your bats, you never know what we will find. Just make sure I know what bat it was from.

[cid:image001.png at 01D670BE.B56C5040]

[The Ohio State University]
[cid:image003.png at 01D670BE.B56C5040]

Marne A. Titchenell
Wildlife Program Specialist, OSU Extension
School of Environment and Natural Resources
College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

210 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Rd, Columbus, OH 43210

614-292-0402  Office
titchenell.4 at osu.edu<mailto:titchenell.4 at osu.edu>  woodlandstewards.osu.edu<https://woodlandstewards.osu.edu/>  senr.osu.edu<https://senr.osu.edu/>





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