Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases from Mallorca Island, Spain

Ixodid ticks are obligate blood-feeding arthropods and important vectors of pathogens. In Mallorca, almost no data on the tick fauna are available. Herein, we investigated ticks and tick-borne pathogens in ticks collected from dogs, a cat and humans in Mallorca as result of a citizen science project. A total of 91 ticks were received from German tourists and residents in Mallorca. Ticks were collected from March to October 2023 from dogs, cat and humans, morphologically and genetically identified and tested for pathogens by PCRs. Six tick species could be identified: ( = 2), ( = 1), ( = 7), ( = 1), s.l. ( = 71) and ( = 9). s.l. adults were collected from dogs and four females from a cat and the 16S rDNA sequences identified it as s.s. was collected from 1 human, 1 dog and 5 specimens were collected from the ground in the community of Santanyi, together with one male. This is the first report of in Mallorca. Both were collected from humans and female was collected from a dog. All ticks tested negative for , spp., spp., and piroplasms. In 32/71 (45%) specimens of s.s., spp. could be detected and in 18/32 (56.2%) sequenced tick DNAs was identified. female and both tested positive in the screening PCR, but the sequencing for the identification of the sp. failed.