Attachment sites of generalist ticks on birds depend on environmental factors (habitat and season) rather than on tick species

The aim of this investigation was to analyze predilection sites of ticks on avian hosts according to tick species and developmental stages, as well as individual and ecological characters of bird species (i.e., their age, habitat type, seasonality). For this, 916 ticks were removed from 289 birds in Hungary at 23 different places in the course of one year. The location of ticks on birds was recorded whenever possible. Ticks were identified as Ixodes ricinus (n=595), Ixodes frontalis (n=34), Ixodes arboricola (n=21), Ixodes acuminatus (n=1), Haemaphysalis concinna (n=246), Haemaphysalis punctata (n=16) and Hyalomma rufipes (n=3). Several new tick-host associations were revealed. Tick infestation showed predominance on juvenile birds in comparison with older ones. Among ornithophilic ticks, I. arboricola was associated with the eyes, whereas most I. frontalis larvae were collected from the ear region. Considering generalist ticks, significantly more specimens of I. ricinus were collected in the spring than during the summer, in contrast to H. concinna-infestation of birds associated with the summer. Importantly, while I. ricinus predominated in the corner of the beaks in both forested and reedbed habitats, the predilection site of H. concinna was the throat region in reedbed but the corner of beaks on forest-dwelling bird species. These findings imply that the same tick species occurred at different predilection sites during the summer depending on the typical habitat of its avian hosts. By contrast, ornithophilic tick species usually infest a narrow range of avian hosts with particular spatiotemporal distribution, allowing them to be more site-specific.