Kennel Tick

• GeneralIt completes its cycle indoors and carries canine ehrlichiosis.
• It is the only tick that has managed to become a household pest: it lays several thousand eggs in cracks around the house and can infest a whole home.
• In some regions it also transmits Rocky Mountain spotted fever to people.
• With the warming climate it is extending its range into northern Europe.
• It is probably the most widespread tick in the world, and the only one able to complete its whole cycle indoors. That is why household infestations are persistent and hard to clear.
• It is a three-host tick: each stage drops off to moult and then seeks another host, but all three can be on the same dog at once.
• Its distribution follows that of people and their dogs, not that of any particular ecosystem.
• It transmits canine monocytic ehrlichiosis and several babesioses to dogs, and to people Mediterranean spotted fever and, in the south-western United States and northern Mexico, Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
• That fever has sustained an epidemic in tribal communities in Arizona, with more than 500 cases and 28 deaths since 2003.
• Its taxonomy remains unresolved: it is treated as a species complex, and some of the older records probably refer to other species.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (arachnid)

Habitat and environment

Homes, kennels and suburban areas

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Rhipicephalus sanguineus