Ixodes auritulus Neumann 1904

21. Ixodes auritulus Neumann, 1904.

A polytypic species found in the Afrotropical, Australasian, Nearctic and Neotropical Zoogeographic Regions (see note below). All parasitic stages are usually found on Aves (several orders), with rare records of adult ticks from Carnivora: Canidae, and immature stages from Rodentia: Cricetidae and Sciuridae (Guglielmone et al. 2014, Durden et al. 2016). There are no records of Ixodes auritulus causing human parasitism.

M: Dumbleton (1953); see note below

F: Neumann (1899), under the name Ixodes thoracicus and given its current status in Neumann (1904); see note below

N: Nuttall (1916)

L: Nuttall (1916)

Redescriptions

M: Gregson (1956), Arthur (1960c), Dumbleton (1961), Kohls and Clifford (1966), Keirans and Clifford (1978), Furman and Loomis (1984), Onofrio et al. (2006 a, 2009), Lindquist et al. (2016), Nava et al. (2017)

F: Neumann (1911a), Nuttall and Warburton (1911), Nuttall (1916), Ault (1943), Cooley and Kohls (1945), Dumbleton (1953, 1961), Gregson (1956), Boero (1957), Arthur (1960c), Wilson (1967a), Roberts (1970), Keirans and Clifford (1978), Furman and Loomis (1984), Barros-Battesti et al. (2003), Onofrio et al. (2006 a, 2009), Lindquist et al. (2016), Nava et al. (2017), Bermúdez et al. (2018)

N: Aragão (1938), Ault (1943), Cooley and Kohls (1945), Dumbleton (1953), Gregson (1956), Arthur (1960c), Roberts (1970), Furman and Loomis (1984), Durden and Keirans (1996), Lindquist et al. (2016), Nava et al. (2017) L: Dumbleton (1953), Furman and Loomis (1984), Webb et al. (1990), Lindquist et al. (2016)

Note: Neumann (1899) classified this species under the name Ixodes thoracicus, as described by Koch (1844a, a nomen dubium in Guglielmone & Nava 2014) based on four female ticks collected in Chile, but later realized that these specimens were different from the taxon described by Koch (1844a) and renamed them as Ixodes auritulus in Neumann (1904). Ixodes auritulus has a worldwide distribution that includes the Afrotropical Region in Camicas et al. (1998, under the name Scaphixodes auritulus) and Guglielmone et al. (2014), although records of its presence on Afrotropical islands were considered misidentifications in Wilson (1970). More than one taxon is included under this name, as suggested by Arthur (1960c), and supported by differences in the morphological definition of Ixodes auritulus among authors. Dumbleton (1961) named specimens collected in New Zealand as Ixodes auritulus zealandicus. Ixodes auritulus sensu stricto is from southern South America (Punta Arenas, Chile) (Neumann, 1899, 1904). Keirans and Clifford (1978) recognized Kohls and Clifford (1966) as the first describers of the male of Ixodes auritulus, but there are at least four prior descriptions, although none from the type locality. See also Ixodes kerguelenensis and Ixodes percavatus for their confusion with Ixodes auritulus and the Ixodes auritulus species group.