Exploitation of chemical, herbal and nanoformulated acaricides to control the cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus - A review

The tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus is a key vector of bacterial and protozoan diseases causing heavy economic losses directly and indirectly in animal husbandry. In the past decades, the control of ticks faced some major issues, such as the rapid development of resistance in targeted vectors and non-target effects on human health and the environment, due to the employ of synthetic acaricides and repellents. Eco-friendly pesticides for treating and controlling animal parasites such as ticks were mainly from medicinal plants and thus they form the richest entity for manufacturing resources for drugs. Even though there are efforts made to discover reliable plant-based acaricides to control ectoparasites in animal husbandry, the effective control of R. (B.) microplus ticks still represent a major challenge in current veterinary entomology. Recently, a wide number of promising attempts have been conducted to use herbal preparations and green-fabricated nanoparticles for the control of R. (B.) microplus. The aim of this review is to critically summarize and discuss the use of herbal preparations used in ethno-veterinary as well as green-fabricated nanoparticles as novel acaricides for the control of the cattle tick R. (B.) microplus.