Vampire tick

Vampire tick (Columbacaris nosferatu)

This representative of cave blood-sucking ticks eats blood of pigeons. The length of its body is up to 4 mm, the individ had sucked to blood is increased up to 15 mm, turning almost spherical. Shell coloring is black with speckled white pattern on the forward part of the body. On forward legs and cephalothorax there are available thermoreceptors; using it the tick finds the catch - warm-blooded animals. After blood-sucking act the female lays up to 200 eggs in cracks of stones. Hatched hexapod nymphs have no thermoreceptors because they attack insects. But at them sense of smell is well advanced, they find catch by odorous traces. Males of the tick after last moult do not eat, their oral organs are underdeveloped. They live about several months due to nutrients saved up from larval stages. For this time they try to find as much as possible females and to fertilize them. The female lays eggs up to 8 - 9 times a life with breaks in some weeks. Life expectancy of the adult female is till 2 years, in case of a fodder shortage the animal can fall to delayed inactive condition proceeding till 3 years without harm for an animal.