Maintaining <Emphasis Type="Italic">Psoroptes ovis</Emphasis> (Acari: Psoroptidae) off-host in the laboratory

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°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°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. The British Crown’s right to retain a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence in and to any copyright is acknowledged.