page_title: Ticks of domestic animals
section_title: One-host lifecycle of R. microplus
hierarchical_section_title: Ticks of domestic animals / Typical ticks of domestic animals / One-host lifecycle of R. microplus
caption_attribution_description: English: A one-host life-cycle of a hard tick such as Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus feeding on one individual cow.
context_page_description: Ticks of domestic animals directly cause poor health and loss of production to their hosts by many parasitic mechanisms. Ticks also transmit numerous kinds of viruses, bacteria, and protozoa between domestic animals. These microbes cause diseases which can be severely debilitating or fatal to domestic animals, and may also affect humans. Ticks are especially important to domestic animals in tropical and subtropical countries, where the warm climate enables many species to flourish. Also, the large populations of wild animals in warm countries provide a reservoir of ticks and infective microbes that spread to domestic animals. Farmers of livestock animals use many methods to control ticks, and related treatments are used to reduce infestation of companion animals.
context_section_description: These ticks are adapted to the advantages of specialising to feed on cattle and with all the feeding stages occurring on one individual host in a rapid sequence.  They also can survive by feeding on deer or some wild bovid hosts.  Infestation starts when larvae on vegetation attach to a new host. When a larva feeds, it molts at the site where it feeds and emerges as a nymph. The nymph feeds at the same site or close by and molts where it feeds. It emerges from molt as either an adult female or male. The female's single large blood meal is converted into a batch of 2000 eggs. The males take several small meals of blood to support their repeated attempts at mating. The molts are rapid and the next stage remains in the hair coat to start feeding again. The combined feeding and molting periods take about 21 days. The engorged female drops from the host, hides under leaf litter on soil surface, lays one batch of eggs, and then dies. When eggs hatch, the larvae crawl up grass stems and wait until they can attach to passing cattle.
caption: Lifecycle of a typical one-host tick
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