Kjær et al.
A large-scale screening for the taiga tick. Ixodes persulcatus, and the meadow tick, Dermacentor reticulatus, in southern Scandinavia, 2016
Parasit Vectors 2019; 12:338
The taiga tick Ixodes persulcatus can mainly be found in Russia and Far East Russia, and in some other regions of Asia. Recently, this tick species has also been found in the Baltic States and in Finland and northern Sweden. This is of medical importance because I. persulcatus can habor the more virulent Siberian and Far Eastern subtypes of TBE virus.
The tick species Dermacentor reticulatus is also moving westwards and besides the TBE virus this tick can transmit medically important pathogens like Babesia canis and Rickettsia raoultii. So far, only a few individuals of this tick species have been found on birds, dogs and golden jackets in southern Scandinavia.
As a part of a large Scandinavian project, more than 30,000 nymphs have randomly been collected in southern Norway, southern Sweden and in Denmark in August and September 2016. No specimen of these two tick species were found, and the authors suggest that these tick species may not yet have established themselves in southern Scandinavia.
To the best knowledge of the author of this snapshot, no publications are available about I. persulcatus found westly of the Baltic States in Central/Western Europe except the following article published in German more than 50 years ago:
Negrobov and Borodin
Einige seltene Zeckenfunde im mittleren Teil der DDR
(Some rarely found ticks in the middle part of GDR)
Angew. Parasitol. 1964; 5: 107-111
The Russian authors describe that they have found 12 female I. persulcatus ticks on deer. They speculate that this tick species is regularly imported by migrating birds which overwinter in Germany and that these imported ticks cross over to other animals.
Recently, Igor Uspensky hypothesized that it may be possible that the ticks identified by Negrobov and Borodin (1964) were I. inopinatus, which have similar morphological characteristics to I. persulcatus (Ticks Tick Borne Dis. 2018; 9: 389).
Dear reader, do you know published data about I. persulcatus in central/western Europe?