2. Rhipicephalus annulatus (Say, 1821). Afrotropical: 1) Benin, 2) Burkina Faso, 3) Cameroon, 4) Central African Republic, 5) Chad (south), 6) Congo, 7) Democratic Republic of the Congo, 8) Eritrea, 9) Ethiopia, 10) Gabon, 11) Ghana, 12) Guinea, 13) Guinea-Bissau, 14) Ivory Coast, 15) Liberia, 16) Mali (south), 17) Niger (south), 18) Nigeria, 19) Oman, 20) Saudi Arabia (south), 21) Senegal, 22) Sierra Leone, 23) South Sudan, 24) Sudan, 25) Togo, 26) Yemen; Nearctic: 1) Mexico (north), 2) USA; Palearctic: 1) Afghanistan, 2) Albania, 3) Algeria, 4) Armenia, 5) Azerbaijan, 6) Bosnia and Herzegovina, 7) Bulgaria, 8) Croatia, 9) Cyprus, 10) Egypt, 11) France, 12) Georgia, 13) Greece, 14) Hungary, 15) Iran, 16) Iraq, 17) Israel, 18) Italy, 19) Jordan, 20) Kazakhstan, 21) Kosovo, 22) Kyrgyzstan, 23) Lebanon, 24) Libya, 25) Montenegro, 26) Morocco, 27) North Macedonia, 28) Pakistan (west), 29) Palestine, 30) Portugal, 31) Romania, 32) Russia, 33) Serbia, 34) Spain, 35) Syria, 36) Tajikistan, 37) Tunisia, 38) Turkey, 39) Turkmenistan, 40) Ukraine, 41) Uzbekistan (Morel 1958, Feider 1965, Aeschlimann 1967, Hoogstraal 1979, Hoogstraal et al. 1981, Pegram et al. 1981, 1982 b, Jongejan et al. 1987, Saliba et al. 1990, Papadopoulos et al. 1996, Filippova 1997, Wassef et al. 1997, Terenius et al. 2000, Morel 2003, Ntiamoa-Baidu et al. 2004, Tomassone et al. 2004, Cringoli et al. 2005, Lohmeyer et al. 2011, Omeragic 2011, Pourrut et al. 2011, Bursali et al. 2012, ElGhali & Hassan 2012, Krčmar 2012, Lorusso et al. 2013, Uilenberg et al. 2013, Sherifi et al. 2014, Shubber et al. 2014, Dabaja et al. 2017, Estrada-Peña et al. 2017, Karim et al. 2017, Hosseini-Chegeni et al. 2019, Perfilyeva et al. 2020, Tsapko 2020, Okely et al. 2021, Perveen et al. 2021). Many records of Rhipicephalus annulatus have been published under the name Boophilus annulatus and, to a lesser extent, Boophilus calcaratus. Camicas et al. (1998) treated Rhipicephalus annulatus as a species that also occurs in the Australasian and Neotropical Zoogeographic Regions, while Kolonin (2009) recognized this species’ presence in India (Oriental Region), but here these regions are not thought to lie within the range of Rhipicephalus annulatus. Guglielmone et al. (2014) were unable to find Australasian localities for Rhipicephalus annulatus, and this remains the case in the current analysis. Alleged Neotropical records of this tick are discussed in Guglielmone et al. (2021), who concluded that several records represent misidentified Rhipicephalus microplus, others were from cattle imported to the Neotropics, and some records are uncertain but do not imply that endemic populations of Rhipicephalus annulatus exist in the Neotropical Zoogeographic Region. The presence of Rhipicephalus annulatus in Hungary is based on Minning (1934), who identified specimens there as Boophilus calcaratus balcanicus, a synonym of Rhipicephalus annulatus in Camicas et al. (1998), under the genus Boophilus, while records from Senegal are from Morel (1958). However, Hornok et al. (2020a) and Sylla et al. (2021) failed to record the presence of this tick in Hungary and Senegal, respectively, and this tick may no longer occur in those countries, which are here provisionally included within the range of Rhipicephalus annulatus. Kata (2022) maintained that Rhipicephalus annulatus is not present in Ethiopia, but this country was included within the range of this tick based on Pegram et al. (1981), although these authors emphasized that Rhipicephalus annulatus was only found at one locality near Sudan. Ethiopia is therefore also provisionally included within the range of Rhipicephalus annulatus. Mutai et al. (2022) recorded the presence of Rhipicephalus annulatus in Kenya based on a study that does not provide information for its identification; consequently, Kenya is not included within this tick’s range. Several publications cite the presence of Rhipicephalus annulatus in the Oriental Region, including records from Vietnam in Chien et al. (2016) and from Pakistan (east) in Adil et al. (2021), all of which require confirmation. Sharif (1928) mentioned this tick as recorded from India, under the name Boophilus annulatus calcaratus, and Ghosh et al. (2007) listed Rhipicephalus annulatus as an Indian tick, but these authors also stated that such records require confirmation. Surprisingly, authors such as Ravindran et al. (2011) considered this species the commonest cattle tick in southern India, but there are no convincing morphological descriptions of alleged Rhipicephalus annulatus from India. Ghosh et al. (2020) added to the confusion by presenting a 16S sequence (Gen Bank KY945491) allegedly obtained from an Indian specimen of Rhipicephalus annulatus but, in fact, it represents an Egyptian specimen. Robbins (2005) noted that this tick has been mentioned as occurring in Taiwan, but he emphasizes that it is not established there. On the other hand, Ghafar et al. (2020) found one male of Rhipicephalus annulatus in the area of Pakistan that lies within the Oriental Zoogeographic Region and obtained a sequence of the 16S gene that closely matches (less than 1% divergence) 16S sequences in Black & Piesman (1994) and Mangold et al. (1998) for the same species. Diyes & Rajakaruna (2015) found Rhipicephalus annulatus in Sri Lanka, but after analyzing more than 30,000 ticks from the same country, Liyanaarachchi et al. (2015) did not. Perhaps the best summation of this problem was provided by Seneviratna (1965, under the genus Boophilus), who, after evaluating the situation in Sri Lanka, decided to classify the Boophilus ticks from that country as Boophilus sp., stressing the need for critical biological studies and formal morphological descriptions that would define the species found there. We support this approach for Sri Lanka and the entire Oriental Zoogeographic Region, which we have provisionally excluded from the range of Rhipicephalus annulatus, pending morphological and molecular studies. Petney et al. (2019) also recommended that the status of Rhipicephalus annulatus in Southeast Asia be reevaluated.

Published as part of Guglielmone, Alberto A., Nava, Santiago & Robbins, Richard G., 2023, Geographic distribution of the hard ticks (Acari: Ixodida: Ixodidae) of the world by countries and territories, pp. 1-274 in Zootaxa 5251 (1) on pages 112-113, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5251.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/7704190