Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicum and Hyalomma dromedarii (Acari: Ixodidae) imbibe bovine blood in vitro by utilizing an artificial feeding system.

Hard ticks have great importance because of blood feeding and transmitting dangerous human and animal diseases. Each year, they cause a lot of economical damage to the livestock industry. Control of ticks and tick-borne diseases is a major priority in most parts of the world and many studies have been done in this field. We know that studying haemoparasites and assessing the effect of different compounds on ticks requires a lot of money, support and sometimes it is time consuming. Considering all of these problems, today, in some research laboratories throughout the world, artificial in vitro feeding of ticks has become common. Development and application of such methods provide a cheap and accessible background for investigating haemoparasitic diseases under controlled conditions. For the first time we report successful in vitro feeding of two important ixodid ticks of the genus Hyalomma.