Argas Persicus

Argas persicus, commonly known as the fowl tick or poultry tick, is a small soft-bodied tick. It is yellowish brown when unfed and slate blue when engorged, and it lives on its animal hosts as well as in building crevices and nests. It mainly parasitizes domestic fowl such as chickens, ducks, and geese, and it transmits the spirochete bacterium Borrelia anserina, which causes avian spirochetosis, one of the most severe diseases affecting the poultry industry; it will also feed on humans, though some people develop immunity to it. It has a worldwide distribution but favors warmer climates, and is particularly common in the southern United States. The species was first described by Lorenz Oken in 1818 from specimens found in Mianeh, Persia, in what is now Iran, originally under the name Rhynochoprion persicum.