Practical 6 Slide Observation of Order Siphontera And Acarina Title: Slide Ctenocephalides Spp. And Ixodes

Practical 6

Slide Observation of Order Siphontera And Acarina

Title: Slide Ctenocephalides Spp. And Ixodes

Introduction

Ixodes is a genus of hard-bodied ticks (family Ixodidae). It includes important disease vectors of animals and humans (tick-borne disease). Some ticks in this genus may transmit the pathogenic bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi responsible for causing Lyme disease. Additional organisms that may be transmitted by Ixodes are parasites from the genus Babesia which cause babesiosis, and bacteria from the related genera Ehrlichia which cause ehrlichiosis and Anaplasma which cause anaplasmosis.

Flea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood. Fleas are external parasites, living by hematophagy off the blood of mammals (including bats and humans) and birds.

Objectives

To identify the external morphology that differentiate between the genus (genal comb,meral rod and pronotal comb)

Methodology

Slide observation of the ctenocephalides spp and ixodase

Discussion

Fleas are small, agile, usually dark colored, wingless insects with tube-like mouth-parts adapted to feeding on the blood of their hosts. Their legs are long, the hind pair well adapted for jumping: a flea can jump vertically up to 7 inches (18 cm) and horizontally up to 13 inches (33 cm)..It has been known that fleas do not use muscle power but energy stored in a protein named resilin. Their bodies are laterally compressed (human anatomical terms), permitting easy movement through the hairs or feathers on the host's body (or in the case of humans, under clothing).

The flea body is hard, polished, and covered with many hairs and short spines directed backward^, which also assist its movements on the host. The glossy surface of the body allows easy movement through hair and feathers .The tough body is able to withstand great pressure, likely an adaptation to survive attempts to eliminate them by mashing or scratching.

Fleas lay tiny white oval-shaped eggs better viewed through a loupe. The larva is small, pale, has bristles covering its worm-like body, lacks eyes, and has mouthparts adapted to chewing. The larvae feed on various organic matters, especially the feces of mature fleas. The adult flea's diet consists solely of fresh blood    in the pupal phase; the larva is enclosed in a silken, debris-covered cocoon. Compound eyes are absent, but some species have large or small simple eyes.

The head of Ctenocephalides sp is rounded on its upper and anterior surface. Ctenocephalide canis, the dog flea, has a sharp curve here; Ctenocephalides felis felis, the cat flea, has a shallow curve. Ctenocephalides canis usually has three or four setae on the metepisternum; the others species usually have only one or two.

Fleas (order Siphonaptera) are one of the major groups of blood-sucking insects. They belong to holometabolic insects. Holometabolism is a feature characteristic also of Diptera, Lepidoptera, etc. Fleas form a separate well differentiated order,

Adult fleas are obligatory hematophages parasitising warm-blooded animals - mammals and birds. Wormlike free-living legless flea larva develops in the litter of host's nest. The majority of fleas are periodically attacking burrow or nest-dwelling parasites, capable of long time to present in host’s fur, unlike free blood-suckers, such as, for example, Diptera or some bugs.

Acari (or Acarina) are a taxon of arachnids that contains mites and ticks.Most acarines are small .Mites are arachnids and, as such, should have a segmented body with the segments organised into two tagmata: a prosoma (cephalothorax) and an opisthosoma (abdomen). This anterior body region is called the capitulum. The remainder of the body is called the idiosoma and is unique to mites.

Most adult mites have four pairs of legs, like other arachnids, but some have fewer.Larval and prelarval stages have a maximum of three pairs of legs; adult mites with only three pairs of legs may be called 'larviform'.

The mouth parts of mites may be adapted for biting, stinging, sawing or sucking. They breathe through tracheae, stigmata (small openings of the skin), intestines and the skin itself. Species hunting for other mites have very acute senses, but many mites are eyeless. The central eyes of arachnids are always missing, or they are fused into a single eye. Thus, any eye number from none to five may occur.

Conclusion

The morphology of the ctenocephalides and ixodase are different between each other and the observation of it were observed

References

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/medical/deer_tick.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixodes_scapularis

Question

1.    State the species name of human flea.

Pulex irritans

2.    What is the possible disease that can be transmitted by Ixodes.

Lyme disease, babesiosis and anaplasmosis.

3.    Classify the types of life cycle of Ctenocephalides and Ixodes

Ixodase -Hemimetabolism

Ctenocephalides-holometabolous