A tick or mite that parasitizes animals, particularly common in tropical regions.
From Portuguese 'carrapato,' derived from Spanish and Portuguese Iberian languages, originally from a word describing small parasitic arachnids found on livestock in warm climates.
The word traveled from the Iberian Peninsula through colonial trade routes, and 'carrapato' became the basis for scientific names of entire tick families—showing how colonial-era knowledge of pests shaped modern biological taxonomy.
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