Ticks

[pike1]

Went out to my centralian/shingleback pit to feed about 3 weeks ago to find one of the centralians rolling like it was doing a death roll. On closer examination i could see it was covered in ticks. These are captive bred animals and have lived most of their lives in this pit. i checked the other 2 blue tongues to find them covered as well. the only other lizards in the pit are a pair of shinglebacks, one which i have had since it was newborn, the other i bought as an adult last september. It didnt seem to have any ticks on it, but they are sometimes hard to find on adult shinglebacks. All i can thionk of is a gravid female tick was on her and all these ticks are her babies. The week end before i took some pics of them and they were fine, not a sign of a tick. The only other thing i can think of is there were half eaten guavas on the wire of the pit, maybe a possum has been sitting there and scratched them off. Anyway be careful when buying adult shinglebacks as they could be wild caught, and always check CAREFULLY for parasites.

[pike1]

Heres some pics

[pike1]

another

[pike1]

more

[pike1]

getting there

[pike1]

the ticks

[Dicco]

Holy hell mate! That's a lot of ticks, how'd you get them off?

[pike1]

metho and tweezers and a couple of hours to spare

[ether]

Good work you spotted them, thank got herps a quite resistant to ticks unlike other animals. Because they are living in an outside pit they could have come from anywhere, check them every week from now on.

Check under the scales of the shinglebacks very well, you will probably find some. I found one on my sleepy by complete accident.

[pike1]

these didnt have much immunity, they are still quite bad now 3 weeks later, it didnt even phase the shinglebacks, they had less than 10 each on them, off the 3 blue tongues i got 174 ticks off them.

[diamond_python]

Wow, that is unbelievable. I have never seen anything like this. Good work in getting them off!!

[ether]

these didnt have much immunity

Trust me compared to things like dogs and cats they do very well against them.

[womas4me]

We get plagues of them here when it rains only.

As for wild caught, so far i havn't had a tick on any of the centralians i have collected. I wish i could say the same for bhp's.

[junglemad]

Far out!!! I have taken the odd tick off an animal but I have never seen that many. They look almost sickening. You could imagine an animal going down fast with that many on them sucking the life out of them.

Poor lizards!!!! Thats is truly crazy the amount of ticks on that poor bluey. Very lucky you got to him in time, looks like the ticks werent there that long judging by how thin they are. Good stuff getting them off pike1.