Haemoglobinometry as a method to determine the blood meal size of two argasid tick specties

ABSTRACT

A standardized clinical method for measuring hemoglobin was applied to measure the quantity of blood ingested by Argas persicus and A. hermanni feeding on chicken and pigeons, respectively. The blood fed ticks were added to a reagent that converted all hemoglobin to hemoglobincyanide [HiCN], which can be read spectrophotometrically. The validity of this method was established by comparing hemoglobin determination with the size of blood meals measured by weight. Linear relationships with high correlation coefficients were obtained for nymphs, males and females of A. persicus and A. hermanni, showing that both gravimetric [weighing] and HiCN methods gave similar estimates of ingested blood