Haemaphysalis spinigera Neumann, 1897

Petney, Trevor N., Boulanger, Nathalie, Saijuntha, Weerachai, Chitimia-Dobler, Lidia, Pfeffer, Martin, Eamudomkarn, Chatanun, Andrews, Ross H., Ahamad, Mariana, Putthasorn, Noppadon, Muders, Senta V., Petney, David A. & Robbins, Richard G., 2019, Ticks (Argasidae, Ixodidae) and tick-borne diseases of continental Southeast Asia, Zootaxa 4558 (1), pp. 1-89 : 29

Haemaphysalis spinigera Neumann, 1897

Haemaphysalis spinigera is predominantly a South Asian species occurring in India (including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands), Nepal and Sri Lanka, with additional records from Yunnan Province, China, and from Vietnam ( Kolonin 2009). This species has been found on a very wide range of mammalian and avian hosts. The adults most often parasitize large ungulates and carnivores, including water buffalo and cattle, but they have also been found on hares and rats. Immatures prefer small to medium-sized mammals (including carnivores, deer, hares, porcupine, rats, monkeys, and squirrels, as well as sheep, cattle, and water buffalo) and birds (peacock, Parvo spp., jungle fowl, Gallus spp., greater coucal or crow pheasant, Centropus sinensis , and various passerine species) (Rajagopalan et al. 1968; Bhat 1974, 1977; Saxena 1997; Kolonin 2009; Geevarghese and Mishra 2011; Yathramullage et al. 2016).

This is a forest-dwelling species, ranging from wet evergreen to moist deciduous forests ( Geevarghese and Mishra 2011). These authors indicate that within the Indian distribution of this species the habitat occupied fits that listed by Boshell (1969) for the Kyasanur Forest area.

Bhat (1979, 1981) provides information on the life cycle under laboratory conditions as well as extremely useful information under field conditions.

Trapido et al. (1964b) illustrate the larval capitulum and the nymphal capitulum, coxae and trochanters. Banerjee et al. (1977) and Guru et al. (1976) demonstrated the growth of various arboviruses in cell cultures derived from Ha. spinigera .