Identification of tick species
A total of 1093 ticks were collected and subjected to morphological and molecular identification, which were identified as four genera and nine species, namely Hyalomma anatolicum, Hyalomma asiaticum, Dermacentor marginatus, Dermacentor pavlovskyi, Rhipicephalus turanicus, Rhipicephalus sanguineus, Haemaphysalis longicornis, Haemaphysalis punctata, and Haemaphysalis danieli. Hy. asiaticum (72.0%, 787/1093) was the dominant tick species, while Ha. danieli (0.4%, 4/1093) was the rarest species (Table 1). Among the nine regions sampled, the largest number of ticks was collected in the Altay region (37.2%, 407/1093); the smallest number of ticks was collected in the Kashgar region (2.4%, 26/1093); while the richest tick species were collected in the Ili region (Table 1).