Ornithodoros erraticus
species of arachnid
Ornithodoros erraticus is a species of tick in the family Argasidae. The tick was described by Hippolyte Lucas in 1849 as Argas erraticus from individuals collected in northern Algeria.
Description
The tick is native to the Middle East and Mediterranean. It is one of the more common soft ticks to bite humans. Their main food sources in Spain are pigs; the tick has been found in pig pens in the provinces of Salamanca, Badajoz, and Huelva. The only human habitats the tick can enter are places in poor condition.
Pathology
This species carries the pathogenic Qalyub and African swine fever viruses and the spirochetes Borrelia crocidurae and Borrelia hispanica. When the tick is infected by B. crocidurae, the disease affects its genetic organ, the testes in males and the ovaries in females. The tick transmits the African swine fever virus only in Spain and Portugal.
The tick feeds at night, ingesting blood to repletion in about 15 minutes.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ornithodoros erraticus” as species of arachnid. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of arachnid. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7103637. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1849.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ornithodoros erraticus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.