First Report of Haemaphysalis Shimoga from Cattle in West Bengal, India

Ticks are one of the most common ectoparasites of cattle. Ticks can cause symptoms of infestation, including tick- toxicosis and paralysis and can also transmit some tick-borne diseases. Some tick species are not commonly found in cattle, but can occasionally be transmitted to them from wild reservoirs. A study was conducted to investigate and identify the ticks infesting cattle from the adjacent villages of Gorumara National Park in West Bengal, India.

Ticks collected from cattle were studied using a stereo zoom microscope. Then, DNA was extracted from them and the mitochondrial 16S rRNA sequence of the tick was amplified using gene-specific primers. The amplified fragments were sequenced and aligned with other sequences using the NCBI BLAST. This further validated the results of morphological analysis.

One of the tick species collected was first identified as Haemaphysalis shimoga based on its morphological features. After sequencing the amplified 16S rRNA sequence PCR product, its length was found to be 456 bp long. Phylogenetic analysis of the collected H. shimoga revealed 99–100% sequence similarity with the reference sequences of H. shimoga from Thailand and Malaysia. This is the first report on the morphological and molecular identification of H. shimoga in cattle from West Bengal, India.