A General Account of Ticks

Ticks are arthropods belonging to the Class Arachnida. They can be further classified as hard ticks (suborder Ixodida) or soft ticks (suborder Argasidae). Both suborders are very important in veterinary and human medicine since they are implicated in disease transmission due to the spread of tick-borne pathogens, cause physical damage to their hosts and in some instances death. Ticks are responsible for billions of dollars in losses in the livestock industry worldwide due to the impact of the pathogens they spread to susceptible hosts. To date there are over 900 tick species.