The Pigeon Tick is a soft tick (family Argasidae) that inhabits pigeon roosting sites and bird nests, feeding rapidly on blood at night unlike the slow feeding of hard ticks. When pigeon roosts are removed, starving ticks may wander into buildings and bite humans, causing intense allergic reactions in sensitized individuals. Soft ticks lack the hard scutum of hard ticks and have a leathery, wrinkled body.
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