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Ticks are highly specialized obligate haematophagous ectoparasites of mammals, birds and reptiles. Ticks are distributed worldwide and are of enormous medical and veterinary relevance owing to the direct damage they cause to their hosts and, especially, because they are vectors of a large variety of human and animal pathogens. In fact, ticks are second to mosquitoes as vectors of human pathogens and the most important vectors of pathogens affecting cattle worldwide (Peter et al., 2005). In humans, tick infestations typically involve few specimens and the greatest risk for people bitten by a tick lies in infection due to a tickborne pathogen (Parola & Raoul, 2001). Such pathogens are diverse and include viruses, bacteria, and protozoa (Jongejan & Uilenberg, 2004; de la Fuente et al., 2008a). In animals, tick infestations are much more severe than in humans. Animals can be parasitized by hundreds or even thousands of ticks, which obviously multiplies the effect on the host, either by direct injuries or disease transmission. Direct injuries to animals can be very serious, especially in tropical climates, and are mainly observed in infestations with ixodid ticks but also in infestations with some argasid ticks as Ornithodoros lahorensis and O. savignyi (Hoogstraal, 1985). The most frequent of these direct forms of damage include: (i) tissue destruction caused by the tick mouth parts and by the local inflammatory reaction of host to tick saliva; (ii) loss of blood, which in massive infestations can cause acute anaemia; (iii) paralyses caused by salivary toxins, such as the holocyclotoxin from the Australian tick Ixodes holocyclus, a tick species that can paralyze and kill a young animal with only one female bite; (iv) toxicoses, such as the Sweating sickness caused by the African Hyalomma truncatum; in ruminants this disease elicits eczematous skin lesions, hyperexcretion of exudates and more than 75% mortality in young animals, and (v) immunosuppression, which renders animals more susceptible to pathogen transmission (Mans et al., 2008a). All these direct forms of damage together with tick-transmitted diseases (including Babesiosis, Theileriosis, Anaplasmosis and Cowdriosis) cause important economic losses to the livestock industry, mainly affecting tropical and subtropical countries, where ticks constitute one of the main difficulties for the development of the livestock breeding industry (Jongejan and Uilenberg, 2004; Rajput et al., 2006).

Soft Ticks as Pathogen Vectors: Distribution, Surveillance and Control