Morphological, biological and molecular characteristics of bisexual and parthenogenetic Haemaphysalis longicornis

The reproductive mechanism of Haemaphysalis longicornis is quite different from many other animal species. In this article, several characteristics of parthenogenetic and bisexual populations of H. longicornis were analyzed, including some important micro-structures, synchronized life cycle feature and sequences of mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene. The results suggested even though many observations of the two populations were similar to each other, some important differences also existed. The genital apron of parthenogenetic females was wider than that of bisexual females. Parthenogenetic individuals (except engorged females) were significantly larger in weight than bisexual individuals (p