Abstract
To know the seasonal occurrence of ixodid ticks, we collected them by flagging on vegetation in the woods (mostly natural forest) of Mt. Kanmuri-dake, Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Japan, at a monthly interval from August in 1997 to July in 1998. Flagging was done at three sites by two persons for 30 min. per site. A total of 9,141 ticks (5,625 larvae, 2,671 nymphs and 845 adults) were collected and all were identified to the species level. Among the nine identified species, Haemaphysalis flava, H. formosensis, H. longicornis, H. hystricis, H. kitaokai, Ixodes ovatus, I. nipponensis, I. turdus, Amblyomma testudinarium, the two Haemaphysalis species, H. flava and H. formosensis, dominated and their seasonal occurrence could be examined. Both species were collected nearly all year round, but the adult seasons differed between the two species; adult increased from late autumn to winter in the former species but appeared two times, autumn and spring, in the later.
