Substances used as repellents to avoid contact with ticks and tickborne
disease are essential to control. Several compounds have been developed throughout
human history to promote repellent activity, and in the last decades, synthetic repellents
have been widely used. However, several humans, animal, and environmental health
problems have been related to synthetic compounds. The use of natural molecules with
low toxicity becomes an alternative to replace these compounds. The natural terpenoids
from secondary plant metabolites are an essential group with repellency activity on
different arthropods. This chapter addresses the primary terpenes with repellency
activity, briefly identifying the effectiveness of tick repellents, test methodology,
primary terpenes tested, and activity. The evaluated compound showed good repellent
activity on different tick species and stages. However, through this chapter, we show
the variations in the techniques used to evaluate the bioprospection of terpenes with
possible repellent activity and a lack of in vivo repellency studies with terpenes.
Finally, we emphasize the repellent activity of terpenes to encourage the use of natural
compounds as a strategy to control ticks
Keywords: Animals, Control, Natural Product, Repellent, Tick
