Sunday, January 31, 2016

Case of the Week 383

This week's case is generously donated by Florida Fan, as was just submitted to his lab last month for identification. I love the artistic nature of these photos!





Identification?

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Let me introduce myself by noting that Bobbi Pritt, is my absolute hero. I find ur posts fascinating. So thank you, for ur intelligence, and knowledge on these parasitic wonders.
Okay, I think that this is a tick.

Henry said...

Ixodes tick.

The U-shaped anal groove anterior to the anus sealed the deal!

Very sneaky keeping the scutum out of focus on the tweeted pic. Narrowed it to Amblyomma and Ixodes based on the length of the pedipalps compared to the basis capitulum, but then couldn't really tell of those were actual markings on the scutum. I had to look this up, but the chubbiness of the 2nd and 3rd articles of the pedipalps also favors Ixodes.

RastaBob said...

Yup, anal groove clinched it - Ixodes for sure - it's almost spring and that means that the ticks will soon start rolling in for ID in our Micro lab - in southern Michigan we get about 1 Ixodes for every 20 Dermacentor species.

Anonymous said...

Ixodes cookie?

Unknown said...

Adult Hard Tick Ixodidae !!

Anonymous said...

Engorged female (suctum only covers the anterior portion) Ixodes (groove around anus is anterior) tick.

Eagleville said...

Engorged female Ixodes sp. Can't get a close enough look at the palps/hypostome, but suspect I. scapularis (dammini)

Anonymous said...

Engorged female adult Ixodes tick...blowing bubbles???

Lee

Anonymous said...

Lee,
To tell the truth, she was quite alive and kicking. I had to pin her down between two slides and shining the incident light from an angle above the tick. As much as I tried to avoid it, I still had the light reflecting from the lamp and a reflection of my 5x lens, will try to do better next time.

Florida Fan

ParasiteGal said...

I actually thought that the lighting effect was very artistic :)