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Laboratory and Field Studies on the Biology of the Relapsing Fever Tick Vector (Ornithodoros Hermsi Wheeler) in the High Mountains of California¹

A large colony of Ornithodoros hermsi Wheeler was successfully established in the laboratory from 2,747 ticks collected from rodent nests in snags in the coniferous forests above 6,000 feet in the High Sierra and San Bernardino Mountains of California. Laboratory white mice served as sources of blood meals for the ticks which were maintained in 50 ml. Erlenmeyer flasks. One O. hermsi was fed experimentally on one little brown bat.

Ornithodoros hermsi was found in 39 snags; 18 (46 per cent) contained ticks that produced relapsing fever in mice. The highest rate of infective ticks in a snag was 19 per cent of the number tested. The transovarian transmission rate from infected females to their larvae was a minimum of 5.3 per cent.

Ornithodoros hermsi was found in more or less close association with the following sylvan rodents and birds: chipmunks, deer mice, bush-tailed wood rats, desert wood rats, little brown bats and mountain bluebirds.

¹ The work herein reported was supported by the George Williams Hooper Foundation and the Bureau of Vector Control, California State Department of Public Health. I wish to thank the directors of these two, Dr. K. F. Meyer and Arve H. Dahl for their advice and support, and the rodent survey crews of the Bureau of Vector Control and colleagues at the Hooper Foundation for their co-operation.

² Formerly with Bureau of Vector Control, California State Department of Public Health and the George Williams Hooper Foundation for Medical Research, University of California, San Francisco.