"These results suggested that small mammals and I. granulatus were possible reservoir hosts and vector tick for the Borrelia sp., respectively. B. valaisiana, originally found in Europe, was transmitted mainly by I. ricinus, and birds were mainly thought to be reservoir hosts. Our results suggested Japanese isolates of B. yangtze (formerly B. valaisiana-related sp.) were distinguishable from B. valaisiana according to the reservoir host and its vector tick. In this study, we also deposited borrelia strain Okinawa-CW62 to bioresource centers as a reference strain of the B. yangtze (=DSM 24625, JCM 17189)."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
