title: Maintaining Psoroptes ovis (Acari: Psoroptidae) off-host in the laboratory.
abstract: Feeding and maintaining sheep scab mites off-host is an important step towards achieving a safer, environmentally-friendly means of controlling sheep scab disease. The test arena developed by Thind and Muggleton (Exp Appl Acarol 22:543-552, 1998) has been adapted for feeding and maintaining Psoroptes ovis off-host. The test arenas are simple to construct and use, and escape-proof to all stages of mites. The performance of the test arenas was assessed by determining the survival of the scab mites at 33 and 36 degrees C and >95% r.h. on different diets. With this test arena the best reported mean survival of 10.3 days was achieved with both females and nymphs at a temperature of 33 degrees C on a diet of sheep serum; the mean maximum survival of females at these conditions was 18.8 days, which is at least a threefold improvement on previous reports. With further development it may be possible to adapt the test arena for assessing both slow and fast acting agents for controlling sheep scab.
authors.affiliation: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Central Science Laboratory, Sand Hutton, York, UK. b.thind@csl.gov.uk
authors.forename: B B
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Thind
authors.forename: H L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Ford
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006813:Humidity; D008136:Longevity; D008297:Male; D009758:Nymph; D040042:Psoroptidae / Q000502:physiology*; D044967:Serum; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors