Brown dog tick infestation of a home in England

PUBLIC Health England (PHE) recently investigated a tick infestation in a family home in Essex (East of England) during September 2014. Specimens removed from two pet dogs and within the property were submitted to the PHE Tick Recording Scheme and identified as the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus (15 males, 14 females and one nymph), a non-native species. House infestations are rarely documented in the UK (Best and others 1969, Fox and Sykes 1985) but may become more common with the increased importation of R …