Ticks are obligate blood-sucking parasites of all terrestrial vertebrates: mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Only very rarely have they been found attached to invertebrates. Hooker reported a beetle as the host of an Amblyomma maculatum (no stage specified) (Hooker et al. 1912), and an adult male Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) annulatus was reported from a horse fly (Leprince et al. 1988).

On April 4, 2010, seven larval Dermacentor variabilis were found on a male carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, at Rayne, Louisiana, by the second author while looking for chaetodactylid mites (specifically genus Sennertia) on two male bees. Deutonymphs of Sennertia are commonly phoretic on Xylocopa and Ceratina carpenter bees (Gerling et al. 1989). No attempt was made to initially scan the bee for attached mites; it was brushed with a toothbrush into a small pan of alcohol. Although no attached ticks were observed, one appeared to be partially engorged (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1.

Larval Dermacentor variabilis removed from carpenter bee (Photo courtesy Joe Macgown, Mississippi State University).

Subsequently, on April 21, 2010, 10 more carpenter bees (7 males, 3 females) were collected from the same location and examined for ticks. None were infested. In the southern United States, Dermacentor variabilis larvae are active year-round, but accelerate host-seeking activity from February to mid-April (Sonenshine et al. 1966, Clark et al. 1998). They have been collected by drag cloth in northwest Florida during February (Cilek and Olson 2000). Since flowers provide the sole source of food and most of the water for carpenter bees (Gerling et al. 1989), we assume the infested bee acquired the tick larvae while visiting plants low to the ground, such as clover.