The Tick Ixodes kaiseri (Acari, Ixodidae) in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia According to the Material from the Collection of Stavropol Anti-Plague Institute
To date, the North Caucasus, particularly the territory of Stavropol Territory, is traditionally indicated as the habitat of the tick Ixodes crenulatus Koch, 1844. I. kaiseri Arthur, 1957 was previously known only from a single site in the Eastern Ciscaucasia. Re-examination of collections from the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia has shown that the overwhelming majority of the specimens from these regions belong to the species I. kaiseri, allowing the revision of common views on the range boundaries of both species.
The Argasidae, Ixodidae and Nuttalliellidae (Acari: Ixodida) of the world: a list of valid species names
This work is intended as a consensus list of valid tick names, following recent revisionary studies, wherein we recognize 896 species of ticks in 3 families. The Nuttalliellidae is monotypic, containing the single entity Nuttalliella namaqua. The Argasidae consists of 193 species, but there is widespread disagreement concerning the genera in this family, and fully 133 argasids will have to be further studied before any consensus can be reached on the issue of genus-level classification. The Ixodidae comprises 702 species in 14 genera: Amblyomma (130 species, of which 17 were formerly included in Aponomma, a genus that is still considered valid by some authors), Anomalohimalaya (3), Bothriocroton (7, all previously included in Aponomma), Cosmiomma (1), Cornupalpatum (1), Compluriscutula (1), Dermacentor (34, including the single member of the former genus Anocentor, which is still considered valid by some authors), Haemaphysalis (166), Hyalomma (27), Ixodes (243), Margaropus (3), Nosomma (2), Rhipicentor (2) and Rhipicephalus (82, including 5 species from the former genus Boophilus, which is still considered valid by some authors). We regard six names as invalid: Amblyomma laticaudae Warburton, 1933 is a synonym of Amblyomma nitidum Hirst & Hirst, 1910; Bothriocroton decorosum (Koch, 1867) is a synonym of B. undatum (Fabricius, 1775); Haemaphysalis vietnamensis Hoogstraal & Wilson, 1966 is a synonym of H. colasbelcouri (Santos Dias, 1958); Haemaphysalis xinjiangensis Teng, 1980 is a synonym of H. danieli C erný & Hoogstraal, 1977; Hyalomma erythraeum Tonelli-Rondelli, 1932 is a synonym of H. impeltatum Schulze and Schlottke, 1930 and Rhipicephalus hoogstraali Kolonin, 2009 was not described according to the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
Genetic evidence for conspecificity between Dermacentor marginatus and Dermacentor niveus
Ticks are hematophagous arthropods transmitting several harmful human and animal pathogens like viruses, Rickettsia, bacteria, and protozoa. The identification and speciation of ticks were normally performed in Iran using identification key of Arthur (1960) and Kaiser and Hoogstraal (J Parasitol 49:130–139, 1963) or on the basis of morphological characteristic keys recommended by Walker et al. (2003). Although these identification keys are well prepared, but there are in some cases due to the strong overlapping characteristics between species like Dermacentor marginatus and Dermacentor niveus accompanied with serious problems. D. marginatus and D. niveus have been intermittently used synonymously and there is no a generally agreement with the specification of these species. To find out more about these two species, we have analyzed the complete nucleotide sequence of ITS-2 region. Interestingly, we found indeed a sequence homology of 99% between nucleotide sequence of ITS-2 region of D. marginatus and D. niveus. Since the nucleotide sequence of ITS-2 region of D. marginatus in Iran has 98% sequence homology to the other in GenBank registered ITS-2 sequence of D. marginatus, and the morphological characteristics between both examined species showed minimal differences, therefore we believe that the D. marginatus and D. niveus could belong to the same species and 1% differences in nucleotide sequence of ITS-2 region between these two species can be understand as an intra-species polymorphism. The complete sequence of ITS-2 region of rRNA gene from D. marginatus and D. niveus registered under accession no. GQ144707 and GQ144706 by GenBank, respectively.