Although ticks are usually exclusively found at
terrestrial and understory levels, ticks have been sampled in the
forest canopy, possibly transported from arboreal primate hosts
(Loaiza et al., 2014). The lorises in this study would have been
susceptible to attracting ticks. The wild Javan slow lorises
frequently move on the ground due to habitat disturbance (Rode
et al. in Press). The greater slow lorises were kept in captivity
near many other vertebrate species, and during their time in trade
would have been more susceptible to high stress and low immunity